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GENEALOGY COLJ_ECTION 




ALLEN COUNTY P^PLIC LIBRARY 



3 1833 03082 8344 



THE HARDYS OF BARBON 



THE 

HARDYS OF BARBON 

AND SOME OTHER WESTMORLAND 

STATESMEN : THEIR KITH 

KIN AND CHILDER 



BY 
CHARLES FREDERICK HARDY 

EDITOR OF " BENENDEN LKTTEKS " 



Hail, ancient Manners ! sure defence, 
Where they survive, of -wholesome laws ; 
Remnants of love -whose modest sense 
Thus into narro-w rootn -withdra-ws ; 
Hail, usages of pristine mouldy 
And ye that guard them. Mountains old ! 

Wordsworth. 



LONDON 
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. 

1913 



" II est de ces hommes aux quels rien d'humain ne 
demeure etranger. Poursuivre des recherches dans un 
but donne et rencontrer, ce faisant, des nouveaux sujets 
d'etude, c'est ainsi que cet humaniste se plait k orner 
ses loisirs." — D. B.-B. 



M 



PREFACE U 35G.1 i> 

OVED by a very trifling occasion some thirty 
years ago I set out to discover what connection, 
if any, existed between my ancestors in the male line 
and a certain coat of arms. The enquiry soon resolved 
itself into the tracing upwards of a pedigree which our 
oldest family traditions carried no further back than 
the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the 
result gave a fairly decided answer — in the negative — 
\ to the question of armorial bearings. But at the same 

time it revealed unexpectedly an outhne of family 
history going back to early Tudor times ; and this, put 
into the shape of a pedigree with bare references to 
dates and authorities and a few explanatory notes, 
was printed privately in 1888 as a matter of purely 
family interest. 

In the course of many subsequent rambles over the 
same ground various clues came to light, suggesting 
further researches into topics of less hmited interest 
than mere genealogy; and the present work, being 
the fruit of these researches, is naturally of a somewhat 
rambhng character. One object, however, has been 
kept in view throughout, though doubtless followed 
with only questionable constancy: to illustrate in actual 
detail the hves and hmited surroundings of the people 



vi Preface 

who form a continuous chain in the pedigree, such 
surroundings being common to them and their con- 
temporary kith and kin, but for the most part hidden 
in obscurity. 

To the great stream of history — 

Where sages, heroes, kings of every dime, 
Whelmed in the too strong depths of current time, 
Neath the slow-rolling waters tranquil sleep — 

the Httle backwater of Westmorland has yielded but 
a tiny tribute of humanity, and dark are the caverns 
and recesses into which have filtered down the small 
fragments of mortality whose existence it is here 
sought to clothe with a semblance of life. 

But, to change the metaphor, it is but a tame 
expedition where the route is always in full view of 
the explorer. In the pursuit of the traces of a family 
whose origin is unknown at the start, the profit and 
the enjoyment of the enterprise depend much upon 
the difficulties encountered and the unexpectedness of 
the result, as each one is attacked or circumvented. 
For I would ask the reader to bear in mind that in 
the main the course of the following chapters is the 
reverse of that in which the actual work was done. 
The story, which opens amidst the echoes of the 
Border warfare and ends in the precincts of the City 
of London, half smothered by the smoke and dust of 
the advancing nineteenth century, was, in fact, 
traced from a beginning in the folios of Hasted, Mait- 
land, and the rest of their topographical brethren, in 



Preface vii 

an atmosphere redolent of leather bindings, and 
followed onwards through many a dreary and stuffy 
register office, till it emerged amidst the dales, the 
becks, and the inspiring air of the Westmorland fells. 

Even here one is reluctant to abandon the pursuit, 
for the question of coat-armour is perhaps the only 
thing finally disposed of. If we could but go a little 
further back, should we not be able to hook on to a 
Plantagenet beheaded for high treason, or to a notorious 
moss-trooper who was more successful than some of 
his fellows in robbing the Scots of their sheep and 
oxen ? 

But what I regret is not the want of personal dis- 
tinction in our ancestry. Far from it : obscurity itself 
may be a virtue. What I do lament, to change the 
metaphor once more, is that, as a sportsman, I cannot 
impart to the reader the exhilaration of the chase, 
known to those alone who have picked up the scent 
of the game on the ground itself, and have followed it 
up hill and down dale ; now running easily across the 
open, now painfully struggling through coppice and 
undergrowth, and now with map and compass noting 
one's bearings and the features of the country, or 
leisurely taking stock of the day's bag. For, after all, 
it is but to a display of dead specimens that the reader 
is invited ; and if he complains that they are nothing 
but skin and bone, and commonplace at that, I can 
but reply that some pains have gone to their selection ; 
that the skins, though stuffed, are absolutely genuine, 
and that the skeletons are fitted together bone by 



viii Preface 

bone as nearly as possible as they were before dis- 
section. In the backgrounds and attempts at simu- 
lating the habitat of the fauna, where the naturalist 
is most liable to err, I have preferred to be fragmentary 
rather than misleading. Opportunities for romance 
I have left to the reader's own discretion ; and, as for 
sentiment, let me say once for all that this little book 
is offered as a pious tribute to the virtues of my 
ancestors and the Good Old Times. 

It remains for me to add that though I have en- 
deavoured to cite as accurately as possible the ultimate 
authority for every statement of fact in the text, I have 
not always arrived at my authorities without friendly 
assistance in several quarters. Lord Shuttleworth 
kindly placed at my disposal a valuable resume of the 
references to Barbon Manor gathered from the Public 
Records, and other useful information relating to 
places and local families has been given me by Mrs. 
Moore of Grimeshill, Miss Margaret Gibson, and the 
Rev. James Harrison. My account of the Kirkburton 
branch of the family would have been impossible 
without the full information supplied me by Mrs. 
Frances Collins from her transcript of the parish 
registers subsequent to the period of her second 
volume. Mr. Herbert Knocker made a long search 
for the information I wanted from the records of 
Sevenoaks School, and similar help has been given by 
Mr. Freeman with reference to the books of the 
Carpenters' Company, and by Mr. P. W. Evans, f.s.a., 
with reference to those of the Clothworkers. All the 



Preface ix 

details derived from the records of the Archbishop 
of Canterbury are due to the Rev. Claude Jenkins, 
librarian at Lambeth Palace, and to Mr. Frank Peile 
several items from the manuscripts of the late Dr. 
Peile, master and historian of Christ's College, Cam- 
bridge. To all of these I tender my renewed thanks 
for their kindness and courtesy. 

Last, but by no means least, I must mention my 
friend Mr. Edward Conder, f.s.a., not only for his 
constant readiness to check and supplement my 
searches in the Kirkby Lonsdale registers by reference 
to his own transcript, but also for numerous hints and 
suggestions on kindred topics, to say nothing of the 
enjoyment which his lively interest in such matters 
has added to my labours. 



CONTENTS 



PAGB 

Preface ......... v 



PART I 
OUR TOPIC IN GENERAL 

CHAPTER I 

KiRKBY Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen — Parish 
registers and wills — Family history — The Hardys of 
1 538-1 5 74 — Westmorland Statesmen — Border tenure — 
Border service — Crown manors — Barbon manor — Flodden 
Field — Barbon beacon — James I's attack on the States- 
men — Litigation between lords and tenants — Enfranchise- 
ment of the tenants ....... 3 

CHAPTER II 

The Statesman at Home in the Sixteenth and Seven- 
teenth Centuries — Wills and inventories — The States- 
man's dwelling — General arrangement — The house, fire, 
food, furniture, sleeping apartments, clothes, candles, arks, 
etc 15 

CHAPTER III 

Some Typical Wills and Inventories — James Hardy of 
Casterton (1594) — His son Richard (1605) — Widow Agnes 
Hardy of Barbon (1605) . . . . . .21 

CHAPTER IV 

Illustrations from Wills, etc. (i 550-1 650) — Parish poor- 
box — Prayers for the dead — Parson's invitation to his 
funeral — i3arbon chapel — Bridges — Arms and armour — 
Joint occupation of the homestead — Sharing a hat — The 
grammar school — A bachelor's legacies — A weaver on a 
small scale — Earth to earth burial — The chapel and the 
poor — Committee for choosing a husband — Heirlooms — 
Church seats settled by will — A crowner's quest — A scape- 
grace son — The death's part of an estate .... 29 



xii Contents 



CHAPTER V 



PAGE 



Hardys who may have been, and Hardys who were 
NOT, Westmorland Statesmen — Offshoots from Barbon 
families — Remoteness of Barbon from Traffic — Other 
Hardys — The name — Wessex Hardys — Gathorne Hardy . 39 

CHAPTER VI 

Roland Hardy — Beckfoot and Terry Bank — The Stockdales 
— Sale of Terry Bank to the Conders — Devolution of the 
Beckfoot state ........ 46 



PART II 
OUR PEDIGREE 

CHAPTER I 

First Generation : Edmund Hardy (d. 1571) — His ancestors 

— Connection with Roland Hardy . . . • -57 

CHAPTER II 

Second Generation : Anthony Hardy (1561-1610) 
— Ehzabeth Middleton of Lupton — Middletons of Middle- 
ton Hall — Royalists in Kirkby Lonsdale — Wilson, Ward, 
Beck, Bouskell, Sir Philip Musgrave, Sir John Otway— 
Middleton Hall — Middleton pedigree — Musgrave pedigree 
— Ahce Plantagenet — Richard Plantagenet, Earl of 
Cambridge .......•• 60 

CHAPTER III 

Third Generation : William Hardy, Senior (1608-1682) 
— His wardrobe in detail — Early handwriting — A retired 
statesman ......... 7^ 

CHAPTER IV 

The Hearth-Tax Return for 1670 — Houses and individuals 

identified in the Kirkby Lonsdale townships ... 75 

CHAPTER V 

Fourth Generation : Thomas and Edward Hardy 
(1643-1710) — A dealer in cloth, stockings, and horses — A 
hundred-guinea inventory ...... 79 



Contents xiii 

CHAPTER VI 

PACB 

Fifth Generation : Children of Edward Hardy — An 

epoch ......... 83 

§ I. William Hardy of Park House (1680-1763) 

Marriage — Park House — Wilson of Dallam Tower — Return to 
Barbon — Enfranchisement — Sale of the Beckfoot state 
— Ingleton ......... 84 

§2. John Hardy of Kirkburton and his descendants 
(1G88-1871) 
Village schoolmaster and curate — An absentee vicar — A worthy 
parson, the Rev. Joseph Briggs — The curate founds a local 
family — Devolution of Birksgate — Thomas Hardy, tanner 
— Thomas Hardy, gentleman — Thomas Hardy, Esq., j. p. . 99 

§3. Thomas Hardy of Mirfteld (i 683-1 739) 109 

CHAPTER VII 

The Statesmen, their Schools, and the Church — Extra- 
ordinary number of ancient grammar schools in Westmor- 
land — Their origin and decay due to the character and 
disappearance of the Statesmen — Younger sons of States- 
men as schoolmasters and clergymen — Kirkby Lonsdale 
school — The Statesman-breed in Otway and Hogarth . 1 11 

CHAPTER VIII 

Sixth Generation, Division I : Children of William 

Hardy OF Park House . . . . . .118 

§ I . Thomas and John Hardy of Leadenhall Street 
and their children (1716-1804) 
John Hardy, musician and hardwareman — The great fire in 
the City— Thomas Hard}', carpenter and hardwareman — 
St. Peter's, Cornhill — Mrs. Christian Hardy — A downfall . 120 

§2. Joseph Hardy of Sutton Valence (i 723-1 786) 
At Christ's College, Cambridge — At Sutton Valence — The 

Briggs family — The old school-house — A specimen pluraUst 127 

§3. Edward Hardy (iji^-iygd) 
Marriage — Assistant master of Sevenoaks School — The Curteis 
family — A warming-pan at Sevenoaks — Archiepiscopal 
patronage ......... 134 

CHAPTER IX 

Sixth Generation, Division II : Children of Thomas 
Hardy of Mirfield (1719-1779) — WilUam Hardy, rector 
of Eastwell — John Hardy of Bridge Place — His catalogue of 
cousins ......... 140 



xiv Contends 



CHAPTER X 



PAGE 



Seventh Generation: Children of Joseph Hardy 

(1751-1832) — Infant mortality — Mrs. Kingsley — Joseph, 
chaplain at Knole — George's youthful marriage — Enters the 
Excise Office — Dies in harness . . . . .143 

CHAPTER XI 

Eighth Generation : § i. George Hardy and his Children 
(1789-1892) — Northern city suburbs in 1788 — The Curtain 
and Holywell Mount — Ditchside — The old Artillery ground 
— George Street, Bethnal Green — Hoxton Square — Norton 
Folgate — A garden wall — Spitalfields and the Lonsdale 
Magazine ......... 147 

§2. Stray Cousins 
Henry J. Hardy — Chrissy Kingsley . . . . .159 

APPENDIX I 
Poor Householders of Barbon, 1605 . . . . .160 

APPENDIX II 

The Hearth-Tax lists for Middleton, Barbon, and Casterton, 

1670, with modern populations ..... 161 

APPENDIX III 
Tenants of Barbon manor in 1718 . . . . .164 

APPENDIX IV 
Grandchildren of George Hardy of the Excise Office . .166 

Index .......... 167 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Southern part of the map of Westmorland, with the borders of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire (from Jan Blaeu's Geography, 
Amsterdam. i648)* ..... Frontispiece 

Outline plan of a typical Statesman's Dwelling . . page 17 

FACING PACK 

The Pack-horse Bridge at Barbon-beck-foot (from a drawing 

by Laurence Hairdy after a watercolour by Florence Hardy) 46 

Chart Pedigree ........ 56 

View of Park House, Tunstall, Lancashire, from the north- 
west (from a recent photograph) ..... 84 

Plan of Park House ........ 87 

Tunstall Church (from an original drawing by Laurence Hardy) 92 

Sutton Valence School and Almshouses in the early part of 

the nineteenth century (from an old woodcut) . .130 

Houses in Spittal Square, Norton Folgate (from an original 
drawing by Laurence Hardy). The window-bars and the 
hood over the doorway on the right are here restored by 
the artist 154 

* This map is a copy of that in Speed's Theatre of the Empire of 
Great Britain, 1611. It is on the same scale, but better engraved 
and coloured by hand. It reproduces the following errors made by 
Speed's engraver in copying the names from Saxton's map of 1577, 
which is on a smaller scale : Burton for Burros (i.e. Over Burrow 
and Nether Burrow), where the Leek joins the Lune ; Kirkby 
Landall for Kirkby Launsdale ; and Leek for Leke (i.e. Leek). 
Otherwise all three maps are practically identical. Sleelmere is 
Saxton's error for Sledmere. Blaeu's text is a Dutch translation 
from Camden's Britannia. 



PART I 
OUR TOPIC IN GENERAL 



Now understonde, 

To Westmerlande, 

Which is my heritage, 

I wyll you bryng 

The Nut-brown Maid 



THE HARDYS OF 
BARBON 

CHAPTER I 

KIRKBY LONSDALE, BARBON, AND THE STATESMEN 

THE extreme south-eastern corner of Westmor- 
land, bounded on the east by Yorkshire and 
the south by Lancashire, is occupied by the parish of 
Kirkby Lonsdale, which extends more than ten miles 
from north to south and varies between three and six 
miles from east to west. The river Lune, running with 
many bends, mainly in a direction almost due south, 
divides it into two unequal parts, emerging at the 
southern end from a valley, bordered by hills which 
at some points on the east approach an altitude of 
2000 feet, into a comparatively level country about 
fifteen miles north-east of Lancaster. At this end of 
the valley, above a wooded cliff, which here forms the 
right or south-western bank of the river, stands Kirkby 
Lonsdale itself, " the church town of the dale of 
Lune." The whole parish is divided into nine town- 
ships, of which six, including Kirkby Lonsdale, are 
upon the right or west bank, and three are on the 
east. Of these three Middleton lies on the north, 

3 



4 Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

Casterton on the south, and Barbon between the two. 
Opposite Barbon, on the other side of the river, is 
Mansergh. 

Kirkby Lonsdale, the name of which indicates a 
Danish or Norwegian origin, possesses an interesting 
church of which considerable portions are of the 
Norman period ; but in the other townships, which 
are now independent ecclesiastical districts, there were 
formerly no places of worship but small chapels of 
ease dependent on the mother church. Consequently, 
though some of these chapels, including that at Barbon, 
existed as early as the Reformation, only those more 
remotely placed had a licence for sacraments, mar- 
riages, and burials ; and the inhabitants of the others, 
including Barbon and both its neighbours on the left 
bank of Lune, necessarily went for these purposes to 
the church at Kirkby. 

Thus, as pointed out by Mr. Edward Conder, f.s.a.,* 
the parish registers preserved at Kirkby Lonsdale, in- 
cluding transcripts of the entries at the licenced chapels, 
comprise the baptisms, marriages, and burials in the 
whole of the parish from 1538 to 1812. These records, 
which are the earliest source of any detailed informa- 
tion about our ancestors, are, compared with those of 
most other parishes, unusually complete and well pre- 
served ; and, excepting the Commonwealth, there are 
only two or three periods of a few years during which 
entries have not been made with fair regularity. 

It appears from the frequency with which the name 
of Hardy occurs amongst the earliest entries that the 

* The Kirkby Lonsdale Parish Registers (Transactions of the 
Cumberland and Westmorland A ntiquarian and ArchcBological Society, 
Vol. V, new series, p. 214). 



Parish Rei^istcrs 5 

stock must have been settled in the neighbourhood for 
many generations before the year 1538. In the earhest 
registers the name is spelt in the northern form, 
" Hardie," or rarely " Harde," and later it becomes 
Hardye or Hardy. Going back from the year 1574 to 
the commencement of the registers in 1538 or a little 
earlier, which, allowing for two gaps in the registers of 
four years each, is a period of about thirty years, we 
hnd, with the additional evidence of the wills, in- 
ventories, etc., in the Richmond Archdeaconry Court, 
at least forty-two children were born to at least nine 
almost contemporary Hardys, namely : Peter, Leo- 
nard, Stephen, Roland, John, Edmund, Thomas, 
Richard, and James. The third entry in the register 
of baptisms is William Hardy, son of Leonard, on 
December 13, 1538. Places of residence are not 
mentioned during the first hundred years, but from 
later entries and the Richmond records it seems that 
all the above branches belonged to Barbon, except 
James and perhaps Richard. James, who was of 
Casterton, seems to have been the youngest of the 
series, being married in 1574 and dying in 1596. 

The Hardys of Barbon belonged to the class of 
yeomen or, as they are called in Westmorland, " states- 
men," living upon the small " states " which were culti- 
vated by the same family from generation to genera- 
tion, and were held by the pecuhar tenure known as 
Border Tenant-right. This is a species of customary 
freehold, and seems originally and more correctly to 
have been called tenancy by the custom of tenant- 
right. The tenant could sell or dispose of the land 
like ordinary freehold, and on his death, in default of 
a will, it descended according to the ordinary rules 



6 Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

of descent, except that in case of female heirs, instead 
of all the sisters succeeding together in equal shares, 
the eldest took to the exclusion of the others. Another 
peculiarity was that the " widow-right " was not 
limited to one-third of the income like ordinary dower, 
but extended in most cases to a half or the whole, 
according to the custom of the various manors. The 
lord of the manor, however, had certain rights in the 
property, of which the fixed annual rent of little 
more than nominal amount was the least important. 
On a change of tenancy by death or alienation the 
new tenant had to be formally admitted by the lord 
and to pay him a fine equal to so many years " old " 
rent, and on the death of the lord his successor was 
entitled to a similar fine. The amount of these fines 
was no doubt originally arbitrary, and, only in the 
course of time and after a good deal of dispute, came 
to be fixed by custom and so recognised by law as 
three years of " old " rent on a charge of tenant and two 
years on the death of the lord.* The earliest record 
I have found stating specifically the amount of a fine 
in Barbon manor is in 1598, when nine years' rent at 
2s. 5d. a year was paid to Sir Richard Shuttleworth, 
the lord of the manor, in respect of the " tenement " 
of John Hardy, t The timber and " ramel " (smaller 
growths) were at the disposal of the tenant for re- 
pairing buildings and fencing, but he could not sell 

* Order in Chancer}^ 1619, referred to below. The " old " rent 
being a fixed amount in money, became in course of time of scarcely 
more than nominal value. 

^}ShuUleworth Accounts, 15S2-1621 (Chethani Society), p. 121. 
We shall have further mention of this John Hardy below. He is 
the only tenant at Barbon whose name I find given in the Shuttle- 
worth Accounts as printed. 



Border Tenure 7 

them or use them off his estate, nor for building on the 
estate unless the building was reasonably suitable for 
it.* 

Another feature by which the Border tenure was 
distinguished was the liability of the tenant's wife on 
succeeding to her widow-right. She paid no fine, but 
the lord was entitled to seize the best beast on the 
property " in the name of a heriot." This at first may 
seem somewhat out of place, but it was in origin 
particularly appropriate, as will be seen when it has 
been explained what Border tenure further involved. 
The heriot was originally the military equipment 
furnished by the lord to the more humble class of 
tenant to enable him to perform his military duties, 
and as the widow was not capable of these services she 
naturally had to return on her husband's death the 
military equipment, or what there was left of it — or 
rather what there was supposed to be left of it ; for 
in later times it had probably never been furnished 
at all ; or, if furnished, the horse would have come to 
be represented by the leather into which his hide had 
been converted, and the arms by pieces of old iron. 
Hence the claim most frequently took the form of the 
tenant's best horse, and if he had not even a decent 
saddle-horse, the best beast of any other kind was 
substituted. Although the women of the Border did 
not bear arms, they undoubtedly took an active part 
in the labour of the farm even as late as the end of 
the eighteenth century, t 

* W. H. Heelis, Barony of Kendal, etc. (Cumberland Association 
for Advancement of Literature and Science, Vol. IV, p. 104). 

t Hodgson, Westmorland as it Was [Lonsdale Magazine, Vol. Ill) ; 
Adam Pringle, Report on tJie Agriculture of Northumberland, etc. 
(1797)- 



8 Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

The peculiar appropriateness of the widow's heriot 
to Border tenure is seen in the mihtary service which 
was annexed to it, and which continued a reahty in 
the district adjoining the Scottish frontier long after 
it had sunk into desuetude elsewhere. According to 
this condition the tenants aged between i6 and 60 
were " to be at all times in their most defensible array 
for the wars, ready to serve their prince upon horse- 
back and foot at the West Borders of England for 
annempst [=for anent=as against] Scotland at their 
own proper charges, so to be ready night and day at 
the commandment of the Lord Warden of the West 
Marches for the time, being warned thereunto by 
beacon-fire, post, or proclamation, and so there to 
continue during the Lord Warden's pleasure." * 

Border service was an obhgation due in a certain 
sense directly to the Crown itself, but the other 
manorial burdens, the rents, fines, and heriots, were 
due entirely to the lord of the manor, although the 
lord, in the case at least of that part of Westmorland 
which comprised Barbon, might theoretically be the 
Crown's tenant in right of a certain share, vested in 
the Crown, of the ancient barony of Kendal. In some 
cases, however, the Crown had retained the manor in 
its own hands, and was therefore immediately and 
solely entitled to the benefit of the manorial dues ; 
but of the numerous manors in Kirkby Lonsdale, 

* This full description of Border service occurs in a Parliamentary 
survey of a moiety of the Barony of Kendal, " heretofore part 
of the possessions of Charles Stuart, deceased, in right of the Crown," 
dated March i8, 1 650-1 (Exchequer Augmentation Office Records : 
Westmorland, No. 6), but the customs are stated to the same effect 
in the surveys of 1572 and 1574 quoted by Nicolson and Burn 
(Westmorland, Vol. I, pp. 45-7), and in the Chancery Order of Octo- 
ber 28, 1 61 9 (Ibid., pp. 51 e/ sqq.). 



Barbon Manor 9 

corresponding for the most part with the townships 
into which the parish was divided, two only, Casterton 
and Hutton Roof, were in this position. Barbon, in 
the time of Edward III, was held by the family of 
Lascelles. According to Nicolson and Burn it passed 
subsequently (when is not known) to the Vaughans, 
who sold it about thirty years later to John Middleton, 
of Middleton Hall, who soon after sold it to Sir Richard 
Shuttleworth, of Gawthorpe, in Lancashire, Chief 
Justice of the Chester Palatine Court, who died in 
1599, and from whose brother is descended Lord 
Shuttleworth, the present owner.* It belonged to 
Sir Richard at least as early as 1588, as appears from 
the remarkable series of Steward's Accounts of that 
family published by the Chetham Society, f In 
December of that year twenty pence was the one-third 
share contributed by him to the cost apparently of 
repairing the village street, and ten shillings were 

* Hist. Westm. and Ctimb., Vol. I, pp. 243 et sqq. It is there stated 
that it was the subject of a settlement by the Vaughan family in 
the 23rd year of Elizabeth (15S0-1), which would make the sale to 
Middleton about 15S1-1611. The authors also make the owner in 
1770 the grand-nephew of the judge, whereas he was in fact the 
judge's great-great-great-great-grand-nephcw (see the history of 
the family by Harland annexed to the Shuiileivorth Accounts, re- 
ferred to below). They have apparently confused John Middleton, 
who died in 1626, with his grandfather of the same name, who died 
in 1580 (see Visitation pedigree of 1G64 and Richmond Archdeaconry 
Wills), and who no doubt sold Barbon to Sir Richard. For 150 
years after the latter's death it was held in succession by five Richard 
Shuttle worths, who made confusion worse confounded. The essen- 
tial error is probably the date of the Vaughan settlement, which, if 
it really dealt with Barbon, was probably dated the second or third 
of Ehzabeth. 

t They are comprised in Vols. XXXV. XLI, XLIII, and XLVI 
of the Society's pubUcations, and . edited by John Harland, 

F.S.A. 



lo Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

allowed by him to his agents for the cost of holding 
the manor court. Numerous other entries occur from 
time to time, from which it appears that the quit rent 
paid to the Crown as feudal superior was thirty 
shillings each half-year. A considerable income seems 
to have been derived from the estate, including free- 
holders' and other tenants' rents, Barbon mill, the 
park, the sheep-pasture, and the sale of timber, but 
there is no mention of a manor house. Sir Richard 
was then deeply engaged in the erection of the great 
mansion at Gawthorpe which was completed by his 
successor. Thus we find such entries as in October, 
1588, sixpence paid for getting a letter from Hornby 
to Barbon, and two shillings to a man for bringing a 
buck from Barbon to Smithills, a residence of the 
Shuttleworths while Gawthorpe was being built. 
Again in June, 1591, eighteenpence was paid " to 
Noddall for his pains for coming from Barbon to 
Smithills." Both the Noddalls and the Otways, one 
of whom, Geoffrey, was the bailiff at Barbon, were 
families of local stock and, we may remark in passing, 
connected with the Hardys by marriage. 

Of the Border and its warfare so much has been 
written and is well known that very little need be said 
here. Considering the remoteness of Lonsdale from 
the usual scenes of conflict, it may well be thought 
that our ancestors were not often called upon to ex- 
change the plough-share for the bill or bow. It is not, 
however, unlikely that some of them took part in 
1513 in the woeful defeat of the Scots at Flodden, 
which was indeed rather a national than a Border 
battle. The old ballad supposed to have been written 
out by a schoolmaster at Ingleton in Yorkshire, 



Border Warfare li 

named Guy, about lifty years after the event, records 
how 

" The right hand wing with all his rout 

The lusty Lord Dacres did lead ; 
With him the bowcs of Kendal stout 

With n\iikwhite coats and crosses red ; 
All Keswick eke and Cockermouth, 

And all the Copcland craggy hills, 
All Westmorland both north and south, 

Whose weapons were great weighty bills." 

Kirkby Lonsdale was, in fact, almost, if not quite, 
at the extremity of the Border district, and the 
existence of Border tenant-right in certain manors 
immediately south of Westmorland has been remarked 
upon as something contrary to the general notion of 
its limits.* Nevertheless, if the statesmen of Barbon 
were seldom called upon to join an expedition to the 
Debatable Land, they had to be prepared to take up 
arms when the signal was given, and to perform the 
duties of watch and ward. The Barbon beacon, of 
which traces are said to remain, f seems to have been 
Hghted on the spot marked on the Ordnance maps 
as " Castle Knot-Barkin," on the steep ridge running 
along the north-west side of Barbon (or Barkin) Dale, 
Though not visible from Barbon itself, it commands 
some very distant views, especially over the Lune 
Valley, and down as far as Lancaster, and over 
Morecambe Bay. 

* J. R. Ford, Customary Tenant-right and the Manors of Yealand 
(Trans. Ctinib. and Westm. Ant. Society, Vol. IX, new series, p. 14O). 

t Harland, Shtittleworth Accounts (Chetham Society), p. 427. 
According to IMr. Howard Pease (Lord Wardois of the Marches 
(1913), pp. 45, 167) there were apparently no regular Border 
musters in Kirkby Lonsdale, but there was an established beacon 
as far south as Farleton Knot (sec Frontispiece). 



1 2 Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

On the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland 
in 1603 Border service became, or rather tended to 
become, obsolete ; and King James seized the oppor- 
tunity of attempting to confiscate his tenants' property 
in the Crown manors of Westmorland by denying the 
legality of tenant-right apart from the obligation of 
service in hostilities, which he proclaimed were now 
a thing of the past. Litigation in Chancery between 
Charles, then Prince of Wales, on whom the King had 
bestowed the Crown rights, was compromised in 1619 
under an order of the court by a payment of £2700 to 
the Prince, in consideration of which the tenants' full 
customary titles were admitted. This naturally en- 
couraged the lords of some of the other manors to 
take up a similar position, but the tenants met and 
resolved to act together and resist a outrance. A 
proclamation by the King purporting to put an end 
to their rights was followed by another meeting and 
more emphatic protests. Proceedings on the part of 
the lords were then commenced in the Star Chamber. 
These were prolonged for some years, and at length 
the matter was referred for argument before Lord Lee, 
the High Treasurer, and Sir Henry Hobart, Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas. Their decision was 
entirely in favour of the legality of the tenants' claim, 
as founded upon a valid custom and not depending 
upon the continuance of Border service.* 

This result, one is inclined to suspect, was due not 
altogether to legal considerations. The statesmen 
showed a spirit of staunch resistance and a hearty 
determination to stick together, of which we can find 

* The history of this memorable dispute is given in full by 
Nicolson and Burn, Westmorland, Vol. I, pp. ^x et sqq. 



Lords and Tenants 1 3 

no evidence on the part of the lords. In fact, judging 
from the length of time over which the litigation was 
prolonged, it seems that they must have proceeded 
in a hesitating and half-hearted way, and that those 
who really desired to oust their tenants were but a 
small minority — amongst whom, we may add, we see 
no trace of the lord of the manor of Barbon. Most of 
the lords, seeing to what lengths the statesmen were 
prepared to carry their resistance, were probably by 
no means desirous of a decision in their own favour. 
King James, in encouraging the lords as he did, had 
no doubt some notion of obtaining an indirect benefit 
out of their success, and it is noteworthy that it was 
not till after his death that the judges' decision was 
pronounced. 

Thus in parts of the Border counties, Northumber- 
land, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmorland, the 
old customary tenure exists to this day, while in 
others it has been converted into freehold pure and 
simple, or into freehold subject to a fixed annual quit 
rent. In the case of Barbon the thirty-eight customary 
tenants, by a deed dated January 17, 1717-8, ac- 
quired the freehold subject to various quit rents, 
amounting in all to £15 4s. 2d. per annum, in con- 
sideration of a capital sum of £1700, for which the 
Richard Shuttleworth of that day also relinquished 
to them all his exclusive rights in the Barbon com 
mill.* As the demesne lands which he retained con- 
sisted mainly of a park without a mansion house, the 
lord of the manor was very little in evidence at Barbon 
for the next hundred and fity years or thereabouts, at 

* I am indebted to the Rev. James Harrison, Vicar of Barbon, 
for the use of a transcript of this deed made by him from the original. 



14 Kirkby Lonsdale, Barbon, and the Statesmen 

the end of which period the present house of Barbon 
Manor was built high upon the steep side of the hill 
looking down the Lune into Lancashire. In the mean- 
time Barbon has not been without its squire. There 
has been a Gibson of Whelprigg for considerably more 
than two hundred years, and the records of the family 
in the neighbourhood may be found some centuries 
earUer still. 



CHAPTER II 

THE STATESMAN AT HOME IN THE SIXTEENTH AND 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 

WE will now try to realise something of the 
personal circumstances of our statesmen- 
ancestors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
Our chief material for this is found in the wills and 
the inventories of chattels preserved in the Richmond 
Archdeaconry Court, which enable us not only to 
understand pretty clearly their family arrangements 
as to the disposal of their property, but also throw 
many curious sidelights upon their mode of life. 

Of the Hardys of our own particular branch — the 
" Edmond-Antony " branch, as we may call it* — no 
wills or inventories are now extant of earlier date than 
1676. That there were no younger sons to specially 
provide for would probably be a sufficient reason for 
not making a will, but allowing the law to take its 
course ; and perhaps no inventory was called for by 
the ecclesiastical court, which looked after the chattels, 
when they were of very little value. It seems not 
unlikely that both these circumstances attended the 
earliest generations of our pedigree. On the other 
hand, it is possible that such documents, though they 

* Or should we spell it Edmtmd-Ant/iony ? But, as our ancestors 
themselves could not answer this question, I claim liberty to leave 
it open. 

15 



1 6 The Statesman at Home 

once existed, have been lost in the various changes of 
custody which the Archdeaconry records underwent 
before reaching their present resting-place at Somerset 
House. To this day they have never been transcribed 
into a register, but exist only in their original state 
of authenticity, written necessarily upon separate 
pieces of paper of various shapes and sizes, occa- 
sionally somewhat decayed and mutilated, but rarely 
to such an extent as to render more than a few words 
here and there illegible. The occurrence of words now 
only recognisable in the dialects, living or dead, of 
Scotland and the Border is perhaps the chief difficulty 
about them to one versed only in ordinary English. 

In the absence then of any personal records of 
Edmond and Anthony of Barbon we will make use 
of those which have been left by their kith and kin, 
and our extracts from these may be usefully prefaced 
by an attempt to explain certain features of the ancient 
mode of hfe in the dales as we see it reflected in the 
still remaining habitations and the traditions recorded 
before the old state of things had completely passed 
away.* 

Let us present first a typical outline plan of the 
statesman's dwelling. 

The house, or as we should call it in modern phrase, 
the " living-room," is the primitive apartment which 

* My authorities for what follows on this topic are " Westmor- 
land as it Was, from the Rev. Mr. Hodgson's topographical and 
historical description," printed with notes by J. Briggs in the Lonsdale 
Magazine, Vol. Ill (1822), and reprinted in his Remains ; The Old 
Manorial Halls of Westmorland and Ciimberland, by Dr. M. W. 
Taylor, published by the Cumberland and Westmorland Anti- 
quarian and Archaeological Society ; and S. O. Addy's Evolution of 
the English House. For uncouth words I have consulted the New 
English and the English Dialect Dictionaries. 



The Statesman's Divelling 



17 



once constituted the entire dwelling, and which de- 
veloped later into the baronial hall. To this the 
chamber for the private occupation of the master and 
mistress was the first addition. The relative positions 
of the chamber and dairy were decided by the warmer 
and colder aspects. The down-house or cellar (which 
latter word originally had no underground significance 
and only meant a store-place) is the next offshoot, 
and was used for the rougher operations of indoor 





\ 












\ 


/ 


B 
C 


House. 




k. Dairy. 


Down-house 

or 

Cel/ar. 




1 


A 
H 







1 


/ Chamber. 















A B C D forms the "house-fire." 

H is the hearth. 

Aim. is the almerie or aumbry, a large cupboard for food, etc. 

work, such as washing and brewing, as well as har- 
bouring things belonging to the farm, fuel, etc. This 
would be the place for the kitchen in a manor house, 
but in a typical statesman's dwelling most if not all 
of the cooking would be done in the house-fire. In 
some dwellings the mell-doors (the passage or place 
" midst the doors ") is merged in the down-house. 
Entering the house, we pass on our right, extending 
from A to B, the heck, a partition reaching to the 
ceihng. On the other side of this is a long fixed seat 



1 8 The Statesman at Home 

with receptacles under it, and perhaps an oven next 
the end wall. On the opposite side of the hearth is 
probably a large oak chest, wonderfully carved, and 
a sconce (or high-backed settle) which can be drawn 
out and placed opposite the hearth and thus snugly 
shut in the house-fire (or ingle-nook), nearly meeting 
a beam which runs across the ceiling along the hue 
BC just above it. 

The fire is of wood, roots, bracken, or peat, not 
placed in a recess, but laid on the open hearth. Across 
the chimney above it is fixed a heavy beam called the 
rannel-balk or rannel-tree, from which hangs the 
racken-crook (literally chain-hook), a chain furnished 
with a pot-hook, which can be moved from link to 
link as the brass pot is to be raised or lowered over 
the fire. On the hearth are the tongs, perhaps a 
creshet (fire-basket), but invariably a girdle (griddle) 
and a brandreth for making bread and cakes. The 
girdle is a flat circular piece of iron with a handle, 
and the brandreth is a trivet which may support 
girdle, pot, or kettle over or near the fire. 

The bread and cakes as well as the porridge are of 
oatmeal. Wheat is a great rarity and only used for 
" arval (inheritance-feast) bread " in the ceremony of 
funerals, and perhaps at Christmas. The other grain 
met with is bigg, otherwise beer-barley, which, as the 
name imphes, is a large kind of barley chiefly used for 
brewing. The bread and cakes stored in the aumbry, 
the great cupboard of carved oak at the end of the 
house and, it may be, built into the wall* opposite the 

* Mr. Harrison has a specimen from a house in the adjoining 
dale of Dent, which could only be removed from the wall, which it 
partly supported, by sawing it in two. 



Domestic Ar7'aiiQ^emcnts 19 

fire, will keep good for months. If the family are not 
to subsist mainly on oatmeal and cheese the house 
should be well hung overhead, except in summer, 
with salted beef or mutton, for the dalesman cannot 
fatten his stock for killing in the winter. 

Along the middle of the house is the board, the oaken 
table at which the entire household take their meals, 
seated for the most part alongside it on a pair of 
wooden forms. The master and his family eat and 
drink from a service of pewter, the servants from 
wood-vessell,* consisting of trenchers and " piggins," 
otherwise " skeels," little half -barrels with handles 
formed by prolonging one of the staves upwards. 

The upper floor is reached by a ladder or stair 
within or in the neighbourhood of the chamber, and 
consists of a long garret. In the older houses this did 
not extend over the down-house, which was open to 
the roof. In this garret slept the children and servants, 
the sexes at opposite ends with a curtain between them, 
and in early times with little or no bedding to lie upon 
but straw and harden sheets. An increase of refine- 
ment would gradually lead to a solid subdivision of 
this floor into separate apartments. Of bedsteads we 
find no mention in our early inventories. These were 
for people of wealth with four posts and a tester, but 
the statesman at best seems to have possessed a few 
pairs of " bedstocks." These were simply the head 
and foot pieces made of solid oak, perhaps ornamented 
with carving, and were connected by the bedstaves 
of lighter wood which carried the bedding. 

The statesman had not only his food, but also his 
clothing from the produce of his estate. His doublet, 

* Apparently a collective singular like the French vaisselle. 



20 The Statesman at Home 

breeches, and stockings were of native fleece, literally 
homespun, and woven by the village weaver. His 
shirt was harden, a cloth made of fine hemp or coarse 
flax, which had to be " battled " on a stone to reduce 
its harshness. The women's clothes were of finer stufl 
woven into a kind of serge, and, like the men's, made 
up at their own fireside by themselves or a travelling 
tailor. Shoes and clogs were made at home in the 
same way. 

Candles were of peeled rushes dipped in tallow or 
preferably hot bacon-fat. The candlestick was an 
upright pole fixed in a log and perforated at intervals 
so as to raise or lower the candle, which was fixed on 
a piece of iron fitting into the holes and supporting 
ordinary tallow candles in a socket, and rush-lights by 
means of a kind of pincers. 

The arks and chests in which clothes, food, and 
other things were kept were of solid oak, put together 
with wooden pegs in place of nails, and, hke the other 
oak furniture, would last for generations. Some of 
these chests of the period from 1650 to 1720, very 
elaborately carved, have come down to modern times 
and have changed hands at high prices. 



CHAPTER III 

SOME TYPICAL WILLS AND INVENTORIES 

LET US now take the record of James Hardy of 
^ Casterton as a type of the Lonsdale statesman 
in fairly flourishing circumstances. The registers at 
Kirkby Lonsdale give his marriage to Isabel Glover 
(an old Barbon family name) on July 15, 1554, and 
his burial on September 22, 1596. The contents of his 
will, which is dated December 11, 1594, and which may 
also be regarded as a type, is to the effect following : 

" My body to be buried in Kirkby Lonsdale church- 
yard. Richard, my eldest son, to have the title and 
tenant-right of my tenement, to him and his heirs for 
ever, after the death of my wife Isabella ; she to possess 
during her widowhood half my said tenement.* 

"As to chattels, my wife to be at no charge out of 
her thirds [i.e. her legal one-third share], but the 
whole charge for duties, etc., to be made and done out 
of the two-thirds, and the remainder of the said two- 

* This, it is clear from contemporary statements in other wills, 
was according to the custom of the manor of Barbon. In later times 
there seems to have been some uncertainty about it (see J. R. Ford, 
Trans. Cumb. and Westm. Ant. Soc, Vol. IX, new series, p. 146). 
Nicolson and Burn say that the rule in the Barony of Kendal 
which included the manor of Barbon, was for the widow to retain 
the whole. This may have been in cases where there were no children. 
In other parts of Westmorland they say the rule was a half or a 
third. Where the tenure has survived to modern times, the whole 
seems to be generally recognised as the right (W. H. Heehs, Cumb. 
Soc. Advt. Lit., etc.. Vol. IV, p. 89 ; G. Gatey, ibid., XI, i). 

21 



22 Some Typical Wills and Inventories 

thirds to be equally divided amongst my four [younger] 
children, John, Edward, Ahce, and Joan. 

" To Edward I give an almerie ; to Joan one great 
chest standing in the cellar ; to John one other great 
chest standing in the house-fire. 

" Richard is to pay to John and Edward ' for 
agreement of my tenement ' [i.e. as their portion 
charged on the land] 5 marks [;^3 6s. 8d.] apiece ; 
that is, 5 marks when he hath taken one crop of the 
first half-tenement, and 5 marks ' when it shall please 
God he doth enter the whole ' [i.e. on his mother's 
death or marriage]. 

" To Richard I give the bed he now hath in his 
possession and the sconce in the house after the widow- 
hood of my wife ; also after her widowhood ' one 
culter, one team and . , . tugwyddyd.' [These are 
parts of the plough-gear. The culter is the front blade 
and the team is probably a chain for harnessing the 
animals. A ' tug ' is a trace, and wyddyd (or wythyd) 
seems to mean bound or furnished with withes. Per- 
haps the whole thing was a pair of traces with a collar 
or halter of wickerwork, and the same as is called a 
pair of ' togwethes ' in another Richmond inventory 
quoted in the New English Dictionary under ' team.'] 

" To each of Richard's children I give 12 pence ; 
to each of the children of Edward . . . my son-in-law 
[whose wife was presumably dead] 20 pence. 

" My wife, to whom I give the rest of my goods, to 
be my Executrix ; Robert Townson, Edward Atkinson, 
John Jackson, and Leonard Gibson to be Supervisors." 

The last two are also witnesses. There are no 
signatures by marks or otherwise, except that of John 
WilUamson, who was at this time Vicar of Kirkby 



James Hardy of Casterton, 1596 23 

Lonsdale, and seems to have actually written out the 
whole document. 

The following is the inventory of the testator's chattels, 
as valued on October 9, 1596, by four of his neighbours : 



Corn and hay 
2 mares . 

2 kye [cows] 

1 whye [=quey, heifer] 

3 young beasts, one calf 

2 sheep 
Brass pot . 
Caldron, 2 kettles, 4 pans 

2 candlesticks, i chafer 
Pewter 
Frying-pan, girdle, brandreth, racken 

crook, and i pair of tongs 
Ploughs and plough-gear 
Wheel [for spinning] 
Wood vessell 

3 chests . 
Bedstocks 
Almerie . 
Bedding and 5 sacks 
Apparel . 
3 spades and i axe 
Boards, forms, stools, chairs, cars, and 

all other husbandry gear 
One swine 
Hemp 
Peats 

Pullen [poultry] 
Lime and tathe [dung for manure] 

Total [apparently wrongly cast] 



L 


s. 


d. 


12 








2 


13 


4 


3 








I 


I 





2 


10 







4 







9 







13 


4 




3 


4 




4 







4 


4 




3 


4 




I 


10 




9 







12 







4 







6 


8 


2 










8 







I 







6 


8 




6 







6 


8 




2 







I 


10 




3 






£28 12 8 



24 Some Typical Wills and Inventories 

The debts due from the testator, varying in amount 
from 1 8 pence to 50 shiHings, come altogether to 
;^5 15s. iid. 

A few of the items in the inventory, such as farm 
stock, may be compared with the prices of similar 
things recorded about the same time at Gawthorpe 
(Lancashire) and other places further south, where 
they were generally higher.* Judging from these, 
the conclusion one would come to is that the values 
here assigned for purposes of administration are 
decidedly, if not absurdly, low. And this seems to 
apply, generally speaking, throughout the inventories 
which I have examined. 

Richard Hardy of Casterton, son and heir of James, 
died only nine years later than his father, and was 
buried at Kirkby Lonsdale, October 5, 1605. His 
will is in much the same shape as his father's. He 
directs that he shall be buried " with his ancestors," 
and that his tenement shall go to his eldest son James. 
To each of his two younger sons, Edward and John, 
he gives 10 marks (£6 13s. 4d.), and charges the total 
upon the two " grasses " which he has bought for 
that price in " the Fell Close." [A grass (also called a 
beast-gate) was the right to pasture a beast on a 
common or enclosed field. Here it was probably a 
stinted pasture field belonging to the lord of the 
manor.] If James failed to pay his brothers' legacies 
they were to have the grasses subject to their paying 
all dues to the King's Majesty for the same. Casterton, 
as already explained, was one of the two Crown manors 
in Kirkby Lonsdale. 

* See the Shuitleworth Accounts (quoted above) and J. E. Thorold 
Rogers's Hist, of Agriculture and Prices. 



Richard Hardy of Caster ton, 1605 25 

Another clause is significant of the careful character 
of the testator and also of the scarcity of money 
amongst his class. He directs that his son James 
(then only about twenty-three years of age) is for four 
years to have no benefit from the inheritance but 
" meat and clothes according to his state " at the dis- 
cretion of four friends, who are named as supervisors, 
" because I would have my debts discharged fully 
and truly." He gives all his goods, moneys, and 
moveables to his wife and daughter. 

He appends a hst of his debts, which again contains 
a touch or two of character : To William Rondson 
(? Ronaldson or Rollinson) £10, to be paid at Candle- 
mas next as may appear by a bond ; To the wife* 
of Roland Rigg £>, 13s. 4d., to be paid the next 
Whitsuntide as may appear by a bill ; To James 
Crosfield, of Kirkby Lonsdale, ^4 5s. " in respect of 
a bargain of wool, and for other little reckonings I 
refer them to his good discretion " ; To Christopher 
Harling 9s. ; To William Jackson, "as I should 
remember, about the sum of 3s. " ; To Thomas 
Garnet, of Casterton, 4s. 6d. " and for one crook [door 
hinge] to a house " ; " For any account or reckoning 
between William Moore, Nicholas Gibson and myself, 
I refer them to their setting down." 

This shows a state of indebtedness amounting to 
some /20 or more, which may well have made a man 
somewhat anxious, the whole of whose goods and 
chattels immediately available for the purpose were 
valued at £33 i8s., and who had in hand no coin 
whatever. 

Returning now to Barbon from Casterton, we may 

* " Wife " is probably used here as we should use " widow." 



26 Some Typical Wills and Inventories 

take the will, dated May 28, 1605, of Agnes Hardy, 
the widow, it seems, of a son of Peter Hardy, who 
heads one of the Barbon branches enumerated in our 
first chapter. Although the inventory of her effects 
shows that she was carrying on a farm on a largish 
scale, this must have been only under her widow- 
right ; and consequently her will is entirely concerned 
with personal chattels and is rather a curious docu- 
ment. 

She gives to each of her godchildren I2d. ; to each 
of the four children of her son-in-law, Richard Segs- 
wicke (Sedgwick) , an ewe and a lamb ; and to each of 
her servants, William Garsdale and Helen Whitehead, 
a sheep. 

Her eldest son John is naturally to have all hus- 
bandry gear and all timber, including wheel timber 
and other wood, but wood fit for cooper-wood and 
cooper- wood already " hagged " (cut in pieces) she 
gives to her daughter Elizabeth. 

There is then an elaborate distribution of bedstocks 
and bedding, chests, brass pots, etc., between the 
children John, William, and Elizabeth. John naturally 
is to have the racken-crook, tongs, " counter-dish- 
board " (probably the prototype of the modern dresser), 
and all chairs and stools in the house, but he is to 
make his brother William " a new chiste of the best 
and largest boordes in the house and furnish the same 
with good jemmers [hinges, gimmers] and a locke." 

To her daughter Isabel she only gives " the gowne 
I left at Ingmyre (in the adjoining parish of Sed- 
bergh), if she list to wear it." But she is probably the 
same as " Richard Segswicke his wife," who is to have 
20 marks (£13 6s. 8d.), and Ingmyre was probably her 



Mrs. Arrncs Hardy of Barbon, 1605 27 

home. Other gowns, including one given to the 
testatrix by her sister Helen, are given to her sisters 
Isabel and Elizabeth. Her sister Mabel is to have her 
" best linen cross-cloth," her niece Alice Moore a 
cross-cloth, a bend (riband or band probably for a 
cap), and a pair of gloves. (A cross-cloth was worn 
across the forehead under the cap.) She gives to her 
" neighbour Edward Baynes wife and Edmond 
Hardye wife the one of them a coller and the other a 
cross-cloth."* To her niece Jennett Hardy a work- 
day hat, a collar, a bend, and a garden smock, and to 
a friend Julyen, whose surname is difficult to decipher, 
she makes a similar bequest, substituting for the smock 
" a pare of shoes of lynsey wolsey." Her daughter 
Elizabeth is to have the rest of her attire including 
her side-saddle. 

She then names nineteen " poor householders of 
Barbon," to each of whom she gives half a peck of 
bigg. Amongst these is Anthony Hardy, who comes 
into our pedigree as the son of Edmond's wife, 
who has just been mentix^ned as a legatee. Taking 
bigg at 28s. the quarter, the highest price recorded at 
Worksop from 1583 to 1603, f half a peck would be 
worth something less than 6d., or say half a crown in 
modern average value. 

The value of the good lady's farm stock and personal 
effects (including four silver spoons valued at 13s. 4d. 
the set — they must have been large ones, as they were 

* Edward Baynes was the scribe who prepared this and many 
other of the local wills. Edmond Hardy, whose wife (or, as we should 
read it, widow) is here named, is at the head of our Edmond and 
Anthony pedigree. Notice the omission of the possessive " s " in 
accordance with the local dialect. 

t J. E. Thorold Rogers, Hist. Agriculiure. Vol. VI, p. i8. 



28 Some Typical Wills and Inventories ' 

furnished " with rings and crooks," to hang them by, 
as I presume) amounted to £^y i8s. 6d., besides 
;^20 9s. 3d. in debts, including £14 due on mortgage 
from Geoffrey Hardy, who was one of the " poor house- 
holders." The scarcity of money in the dales is again 
curiously illustrated by the list of the testatrix's 
creditors. To William Garsdale she owed £4 15s. 4d., 
besides 56s. for two years' wages, and to her other 
servant Helen Whitehead 13s. 4d. To her sister and 
three children she owed about 20s. each. With regard 
to Garsdale's wages, which seem ridiculous compared 
with labour at 5s. a week, the price about 1583-1600,* 
it must be assumed he received in addition board and 
lodging gratis. He was evidently something more 
than a mere servant, for on the death of Agnes Hardy's 
eldest son John in 161 1 we find him again mentioned. 
John gives him, besides an ewe sheep, two closes of 
land and " the chamber he lieth in " for his life, 
subject to a nominal yearly rent of 4d., and provides 
for his purchasing a share of a cow and a sterk (a 
young bull, bullock, or heifer) in which he and the 
testator were partners. 

* Rogers, Agriculture, Vol. V, p. 826. 



CHAPTER IV 

ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS FROM WILLS, ETC., I550-165O 



H 



AVING now dealt with a few cases typical of a 
statesman's position as a whole, I will give in 
chronological order some short extracts from wills and 
inventories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
in order to fill up the picture, as it were, with various 
more or less curious details. There are very few 
records, perhaps not more than half a dozen, in the 
Richmond Archdeaconry collection, dated before the 
second half of the sixteenth century, which relate to 
Lonsdale. An interesting selection from the records 
prior to this period is comprised in Vol. XX\'I of 
the Surtees Society's publications, edited by James 
Raine, junr. (1853), but they almost without exception 
relate to people whose circumstances were very dif- 
ferent from those of the Westmorland statesmen. 

1 55 1, February 4. — Adam Mydleton of Lupton 
gives directions that he is to be buried in " my parish 
church of Lonesdall," and bequeaths to " the poor 
man's box at the said church 12 pence " ; also to Sir 
Robert Applegarth, curate of Kirkby Lonsdale, 
3s. 4d., and to Sir Robert Dodshone, clerk, 12 pence, 
desiring them in their prayers to " commend my soul to 
the mercy of God." It will be noticed that this is in 
the reign of Edward VI. The form of probate endorsed 
is unusual, being in the name of the King as " Supreme 

Head of the Church." 

29 



30 Illustrative Extracts from Wills, etc. 

1567, January 20. — Robert Gibson, parson of 
Staveley (near Windermere), is to be buried in his 
parish church of Staveley " before myne owine stawU 
in the choir." ..." I will that, the day of my 
buriall, be geven a penny or half-penny, and all that 
offers to have a dyner," One's reluctance to leave 
unmentioned the quaint charity of Sir Robert must 
be our apology for assuming his connection with 
Barbon on the strength of his name of Gibson. 

1571, May 20. — Amongst the debts of John Hardy 
of Barbon, annexed to the inventory of his effects, are 
" The chapel, 25s." and " The bridge, 22s. 4d." This 
was probably the pack-horse bridge at Beckfoot, 
which we shall refer to later, not the road bridge in 
Barbon village, the upper or " over " bridge, for the 
amendment of which there is a legacy of 20s. in the 
will of Leonard Stockdale, dated in the year 1569, 
which we shall also refer to below. In any case, the 
expression " over bridge " is an indication of at least 
two bridges being at this time in existence. Nor is it 
unlikely that the Barbon beck was then also crossed 
by a third. Hodge Bridge, as it now actually exists, 
probably only dates from the construction of the 
present coach-road to Sedbergh, which crosses the 
beck half-way between the other two ; but a " Hodge 
Brigg " is mentioned in the enfranchisement deed 
(already quoted) of 1718. This was probably also a 
pack-horse bridge alongside a ford, of which traces 
still remain near the spot, and was part of a highway 
from Barbon to Hawkin and other houses in that 
direction. The coach-road as such was probably 
constructed about 1780-90. The earliest evidence of 
its existence which I have discovered is a map, No. 67, 



Roads; Brid{^es : Arms and Armour 31 

in the second volume of Paterson's British Itinerary of 
1785, but it is not mentioned in the book itself nor in 
any edition of Paterson's Roads before the twelfth 
(1799). It is then given as part of the road from 
Lancaster to Sedbergh. In the next edition (1803) it 
appears as part of the road from London to Kirkby 
Stephen, which had hitherto been by a rather longer 
route through Kendal. The original way up our side 
of the dale must have been more or less along the line 
of the higher road from Casterton which passes through 
Barbon village. 

If the mention of the " over bridge " in Leonard 
Stockdale's will points to a respectable antiquity, it 
is probably but modern compared with the still 
surviving pack-horse bridge at Beckfoot, or with the 
bridge across the Lune near the end of the three or 
four miles of road which lie between Barbon and 
Kirkby itself. Than this bridge there is no work of 
man in Lonsdale more worthy of the surrounding 
loveliness of which Nature in that valley has been 
lavish. As its origin goes back no one knows how far 
beyond the Edwardian age, so may it be that no one 
will ever know the end of its days ! 

1573, March 17. — The will of Agnes Bouskell, 
widow of Giles Bouskell of Casterton, contains a be- 
quest to the son of one of her friends of " one jacke 
[leather jacket], one salet [a kind of helmet], with a 
tow [two]-handyd sworde." Besides this the only 
mention of arms or armour I have discovered amongst 
the Lonsdale statesmen is in an undated inventory, 
apparently of about the year 1600, of the goods of 
Thomas Bouskell of Barbon. This contains his sword 
and dagger, valued at los., with his saddle and bridle 



32 Illustrative Extracts from Wills, etc. 

at 4s. The Bouskells were connected by marriage 
with the Stephen Hardy branch. 

1577, June 10. — Matthew Stockdale of Barbon, 
brother of Leonard, already mentioned, directs that 
his wife and his eldest son William Stockdale shall have 
all his lands during the widowhood of his wife, and 
" if they cannot agree to dwell together, which God 
forbid," they are to abide the award of four of their 
nearest friends as to a division. The three younger 
sons are given 20 nobles (i^6 13s. 4d.) each, and the 
three daughters on marriage £20 each. All the children 
are " to have meat and drink and come and go to my 
house until such time as they shall come to succour 
[means of livelihood]." . . . " To every one of my god- 
children whom I have christened a lamb." 

1579, March 5. — The inventory of Roland Hardy's 
effects seems to indicate some rather complicated 
situation under an intestacy, and the difficulty of a 
division due to the scarcity of a medium of exchange. 
It includes " His part of a chest . . . His part in a 
silk hat and other gear ... 3 quarters of seed due 
to him of his uncle Robert Hardy and John Hardy 
... 10 pecks of bigg seed due to him from the 
same." 

1586, July 14. — John Mydleton of Lupton directs 
his wife and his son Arthur " to dwell together as long 
as they can agree ; the house I dwell in to be equally 
divided between them, my wife to have the south end." 
He gives to the free school of Kirkby Lonsdale 3s. 4d. 
His best horse is valued at £4 (a high price), and two 
old horses at £1 6s. 8d. 

1598, April I. — John Hardy of Barbon, who had 
no children and left personal estate of the value of 



Divisions; Ftmerals ; Weaving 33 

£11^ 9s. 8d., gave to his sister two whyes (heifers) of 
the mild sort — neither of the best nor the worst ; to 
the inhabitants of Barbon towards maintenance of 
God's service at our chapel 40s. ; "to httle Robert 
Ustonson when loose of his apprenticeship 3s. 4d." ; 
" to Alice my maidservant two ewes ; to each of my 
manservants a sheep." This seems to be the John 
Hardy in respect of whose tenement Sir Richard 
Shuttleworth received, as already mentioned, a fine 
of nine years' rent on the change of tenancy by the 
tenant's death, 

1599, January 11. — The funeral expenses of George 
Hardy of Camforth in the neighbouring parish of 
Warton, Lancashire, a cousin of the Hardys of Barbon, 
amounted to 2id. He is described as a webster 
(weaver), and is one of the few instances in these early 
wills of a member of the family venturing into business. 
But the inventory of his effects, of which the total 
value was £8 3s. 4d., shows that he was still partly 
dependent on the soil for his livelihood. He had 
3 head of cattle, 3 sheep, and poultry, worth £1 os. 4d. ; 
barley (at is. per peck), with hay, hemp, etc., worth 
£1 4s. lod. ; while his looms and heddles are put down 
only at los. However, it seems from later records 
that one of his sons continued in the same occupation, 
and there are traces of the family at Carnforth as late 
as 1720. 

In connection with the small sum paid for funeral 
expenses, it may be mentioned that in this part of 
Westmorland it seems to have been not unfrequent 
even at the beginning of the eighteenth century to 
bury without a coffin. It is said that the ancient custom 
was suppressed by the admonitions of the Rev. 

D 



34 Illustrative Extracts from Wills, etc. 

William Crosby, who was Vicar of Kendal from 1699 

to I734-* 

1601, May 16. — At the burial of Robert Hardy 
the younger of Barbon, whose effects were worth 
£60 14s. 8d., but who seems to have left no will, there 
were paid 15s. to the chapel, 5s. to the poor of Barbon, 
and £l is. 8d, to " the officer and summoner and for 
mortuary." The mortuary was a customary gift to 
the parish church. The summoner was an officer, 
probably of the Archdeaconry Court, who had to find 
the person to whom should be entrusted the ad- 
ministration of the estate. 

1605, May 16. — Peter Hardy of Mansergh, a 
township adjoining Barbon, who had no children, 
gives his tenement to his niece Jennett Hardy on 
condition that " she shall be ruled by her father, 
Richard Moore, and Edward Baines, my good friends, 
in choosing a husband." To each of his god-children 
a lamb ; Christabel his wife to have one cow, viz. 
" the brocked [parti-coloured] cow," besides her half 
of his goods. " I earnestly request my good landlord, 
Mr. Brabyn, not to admit my niece nor him that shall 
marry her tenant of my tenement but under the con- 
ditions of my will." ..." I will the almerie and the 
chist in the sellar shall remain at the house as heir- 
looms," my wife to have the use of them during 
widowhood. 

The niece Jennett was apparently identical with the 
niece to whom Mrs. Agnes Hardy bequeathed a work- 
day hat and a garden smock. No trace of her marriage 

* Manners and Customs of Westynorland, " bj' a Literary Anti- 
quarian " [John Gough], reprinted in 1847 from the Kendal Chronicle 
of 1812. 



Husband CJioosijig : Church Scats 35 

appears in the parish registers, which perhaps is not 
surprising if she attempted to follow the procedure 
laid down in Uncle Peter's will. Mr. John Ward was, 
of course, of Rigmaden, where his family had been 
seated so far back as the time of Edward III. It is 
on the opposite side of the Lune facing Middleton. 

1605, January 15. — Edward Midlton of Dcepdalc- 
head in the parish of Dent in Yorkshire, immediately 
adjoining Barbon, gave by his will to his eldest son 
Richard " my man's seat or rowme in the churche," 
and to his daughter " Isabel, Christopher Willan wife," 
and his daughter-in-law SibeU (wife of Richard) two 
" woman's rowmes " equally between them, " being 
both together in one place or form," Sibell's seat to go 
to her son Edward after her death. I venture to think 
this testamentary gift of a church seat is somewhat 
rare, especially in the will of a simple yeoman. But 
it is well known that at this time the appropriation of 
seats to families or individuals had become recognised ;* 
and one can see in such cases as this, where the same 
little property descended from father to son for many 
generations, how easily the theory (since sanctioned 
by law) might arise, that the right to the seat or pew 
must be appurtenant to a certain dwelling in the parish, 
and so could be based on prescription without evidence 
of its actual origin. The separation of the sexes, a 
very ancient custom, was the rule till much later. f 
It seems odd that the testator should direct a woman's 
seat to be afterwards occupied by her son. Perhaps 
there was a system of exchange. XJ.i >Oo X-C 

1608, January 20. — Geoffrey Hardy, one of the 

* Heales, Hist, and Law of Church Seats, Vol. I, p. loi. 
t Ibid.. Vol. I. p. 138. 



36 Illustrative Extracts from Wills, etc, 

poor householders of Barbon mentioned by Mrs. 
Agnes Hardy, apparently died a violent death, as in 
his widow's account of her administration she enters : 
" For the Crowner 13s. 4d." But it seems the 
" crowner 's 'quest " was not occasioned by a case 
of suicide, as his burial is entered at Kirkby Lonsdale 
in the usual way. His effects were valued at £33 8s. 6d., 
and his debts, including £3 due to our ancestor Anthony 
Hardy, another " poor householder," amounted to 
£23 2S. He had four children, of whom the eldest 
was only twelve years old, and consequently his widow 
had to give a bond with two sureties in £40 for their 
education, with meat, clothing, etc., during minority. 
Geoffrey Stockdale of Barbon, yeoman, one of the 
sureties, signs his name in handwriting which looks 
extremely respectable amongst the humble marks 
affixed by the other parties. The Stockdales, though 
cousins of the Hardys, were, as we shall see later, 
somewhat their superiors in wealth and station. 
The description " yeoman," in fact, implies that he 
held his land as an ordinary freeholder. 

1608, June 28. — In the will of George Myddleton 
of Lupton : " And for my son John, I protest he hath 
had his portion sevenfold and more in charges I have 
been at for him, and therefore I will assign him no 
more portion of my goods." 

1618, November 14. — The personal effects of John 
MiDDLETON of Aykrigg End, Lupton, amounted to the 
large sum of £190 is. 4d., including one item very rare 
in the dales, " gold and money, £10," Twelve stone of 
wool is valued at £(i, and debts due to the deceased 
amount to ;£6i 8s. 4d. He died intestate, leaving a 
widow and two sons, and the latter being under age 



Gtiardianships : the Dcatlis part 2i7 

the widow filed in the ecclesiastical court a carefully 
prepared account of her administration. The value 
of the personal estate after all deductions, which 
include ;^'5 for funeral expenses and los. for mortuary, 
is £223 19s. 8d. The division of this balance illus- 
trates rather neatly the state of things before the 
passing of the statute of Charles II for the distribution 
of intestates' effects. Under that Act the personalty 
would be divisible equally between the widow and 
two sons, notwithstanding that the elder son had 
succeeded to the land as heir-at-law. The account 
does, in fact, show a division into three equal parts. 
One third is retained by the widow ; another third, 
less IIS. 8d. for his " tuition " (probably an official 
fee), is assigned to the younger son ; and the re- 
maining third is called " the deathes parte." This 
the widow prays may be divided between her and the 
younger son, John, Arthur the elder " being preferred 
[advantaged] by land worth ;^20." It seems from an 
endorsement on the inventory that this was sanctioned 
by the court. 

1641, February 4. — John Conder, as appears by 
his father's record in 1636, had inherited an unusually 
large estate in Kirkby Lonsdale, whence he had 
migrated into Ingleton, an adjoining part of York- 
shire. His wife had predeceased him, leaving him 
three children all under age at his death. In these 
circumstances, whether according to feudal principles 
or otherwise, the duty of administering the personal 
estate was entrusted to the lord of the manor of Ingle- 
ton, Mr. Robert Lowther, who gives to the Court a 
bond for £400 as security for due administration, his 
sureties being Sir John Readman (Redmayne, alias 



38 Illustrative Extracts froin Wills, etc. 

Redman, lord of the manor of Thornton, which ad- 
joins Ingleton) and Mr. John Middleton of Middleton 
Hall (lord of the manor of Middleton in Kirkby 
Lonsdale). Conder probably had property in all three 
manors. The seals on the bond are impressed re- 
spectively with six annulets (3, 2, and i), a hand, and 
a monogram of J.M. 

Robert Lowther, by the arms on his seal, was of a 
branch of Lowther of Lowther, a family too well 
known to want further mention here. This branch 
had held the manor of Ingleton for two or three genera- 
tions.* Sir John Redman was the father of Major 
John Redman, a staunch royalist, who was the owner 
of Thornton Hall when it was blown up by Cromwell, 
and whose tomb is in Thornton Church, f The arms 
of Redman were gules, three cushions ermine, tasselled 
or. J A red hand (whence the seal) was, I presume, 
only a badge. The race was an ancient one scattered 
widely in these parts. § Of the Middletons of Middleton 
Hall we have more to say below. Their arms were 
argent, a saltire engrailed sable. 

* Balderston, Ingleton, p. 95. 

t H. Speight, Craven, etc., p. 264 ; Balderston, Ingleton, p. loi. 
+ Bellasis, Westmorland Church Notes, Vol. I, pp. 22 et sqq. 
§ See The Redmans of Levens, by W. Greenwood, f.s.a.scot. 



CHAPTER V 

HARDYS OUTSIDE WESTMORLAND 

BEFORE leaving the subject of Barbon families 
in general, it may be remarked that such pedi- 
grees as can be traced from parish registers and local 
wills are necessarily confmcd almost entirely to the 
head of the family and his immediate descendants. 
In such a primitive state of things as prevailed in 
Westmorland in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies — and indeed long after — there was httle or no 
scope in one's native place for any expansion or change 
of fortune. The history of a family of statesmen is 
mainly the history of the descent from generation to 
generation of the few paternal acres which formed a 
homestead for a single household. To this the eldest 
son succeeded, while his brethren received sums of 
money which would take them in search of an occupa- 
tion, perhaps the same as or perhaps different from that 
of their ancestors, into a part of the kingdom which, 
though not distant according to our modern notions, 
was then practically beyond the reach of all ordinary 
communications. 

Kirkby Lonsdale, as it seems from the Itinerarium 
Anglia:, Ogilby's great route-book with maps and 
elaborate descriptions of the principal roads, published 
in 1675,* was only accessible by a road which led 

* The original title seems to have been Britannia, Volume the 
First, etc. 

39 



40 Hardys Outside Westmorland 

nowhere else. He gives no account of this road beyond 
mentioning the point at which it branches out of the 
main road from Lancaster to Settle and York. By 
this branch road, which follows the left bank of the 
Lune, Kirkby Lonsdale is eight miles from Hornby or 
eighteen from Lancaster. Going in the opposite 
direction one leaves the main road at Clapham, whence 
the distance is eleven miles, or from Skipton eighteen ; 
but this road is not noticed by Ogilby, and was, I 
suspect, in his time httle better than a bridle-track 
across the moors. Beyond Kirkby the road now 
continues in a north-westerly direction to Kendal, a 
distance of twelve miles, of which the first eight are 
engineered along a winding course over what is still 
to a large extent a wild and rugged district of moor and 
fell. This road was made under a Turnpike Act of 
1753 (26 Geo. H, cap. 86), before which the route 
must have been for the most part a mere track for 
pack-horses. The Milnthorpe road dates from 1824. 

But Barbon lay on the other side of the Lune. To 
reach it you would leave the road from Hornby at 
Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge, and, \^dthout crossing the 
river or going into Kirkby at all, follow for three miles 
now a track, now a narrow lane, parallel with the left 
bank along the side of Casterton Fell. Beyond this, 
that is to the north and east, was the wilderness indeed. 
The road from Carlisle to Newcastle is the only one 
noticed by Ogilby which would cross a bee-hne of 115 
miles drawn from Kirkby Lonsdale to Berwick-on- 
Tweed. Even in the hey-day of posting* there was but 
one other mail-coach road, that going from Penrith to 
Greta Bridge, between our dale and a district which in 

* See for instance Paterson's Road Booh of 1824. 



Rcmotcncs>s of Upper Lonsdale 41 

the middle of the seventeenth century was the happy 
hunting-ground of the moss-troopers of the Border. 

Thus of the natives who left Barbon to earn their 
livelihood elsewhere there must have been few who 
did not bid a long farewell to their kith and kin. In 
a very few generations the descendants of a man thus 
placed out of touch with his home would naturally 
lose all trace of their ancient family connections, and 
perhaps not the less readily because he had been 
favoured by good fortune in his new surroundings. 
It may therefore be conjectured that a large number 
of the Hardys who have flourished in various parts of 
the country, especially in the North of England, arc 
descendants of the Barbon or Casterton statesmen — 
a race of whose existence they have never heard. 

Of course, the name itself is no indication of kinship. 
It may have originated independently as a surname 
in any number of individuals not living in the same 
community. There is the Wessex family, for instance, 
of which Admiral Sir Thomas IMasterman Hardy, the 
friend of Nelson, and it is also to be supposed the 
famous writer, are illustrious members. They were 
probably of the same origin as the Hardys of Toller 
Welme and elsewhere in Dorsetshire,* whose pedigree 
appears in the heralds' visitations of 1565 and 1677, 
and whose arms were sable, on a chevron between 
three escallops or three wyverns* (or dragons') heads 
of the field. There is not the least ground for supposing 
that this family had any connection with the North of 
England. It is said to be descended from one Clement 

* See Hutchins's History of Dorset, Vol. IV. pp. 433 and 502, and 
J. Bertrand Payne, Armorial of Jersey. The family became extinct 
in the male hne in the eighteenth century. 



42 Hardys Outside Westmorland 

le Hardi, bailiff of Jersey. This, though resting on 
doubtful authority, is not inherently improbable, but 
it is worth pointing out that the name is not by any 
means to be taken as a necessary indication of French 
or Norman origin. As a surname in England, and 
distinctly as a family surname (not a mere personal 
nickname), it is probably as old as any. It occurs as 
such (mainly in the Eastern Counties*) several times 
in the Hundred Rolls, a survey of the royal demesnes, 
which was made about 1273, but which contains, by 
the bye, no record of Westmorland. At this time 
family surnames, which were not in use before the 
Norman Conquest, had become fairly common, though 
not by any means universal ; but the word " hardy," 
though an adaptation from the French, and down to 
the fifteenth century commonly written in the French 
form " hardi," had been incorporated in the Enghsh 
language at least half a century eariier.t It is there- 
fore quite unnecessary to suppose that as a name it 
was brought into England from France or Normandy 
or elsewhere. The spelling in the Hundred Rolls 
confirms its English origin. It is far more often 
" Hardy " than " Hardi," and the distinctly French 
form " le Hardi " does not occur at all. 

One of the best-known individuals bearing our 
patronymic in modern times was Gathorne Gathorne- 
Hardy, first Earl of Cranbrook, whose life has been 
written by his son, the Hon. A. E. Gathorne-Hardy. 
The latter states that there is a tradition in the family 
that they came from Ireland, though he does not seem 
to regard it with much faith, and he lays some stress 

* Whence comes Sir H. H. Cozcns-Hardy, Master oi the Rolls, 
t See the New English Dictionary (Oxford). 



IVesscx Hardys ; Lord Cranbrook 43 

on the fact that his father knew very Httle of his 
ancestry, never having seen his grandfather, John 
Hardy, who founded the family fortunes and died in 
1806. Beyond this the only facts ascertained arc that 
the said John Hardy and his father William (born 
1715) were natives of Horsforth, near Leeds, where the 
father of William, also named John and described as 
a " labourer," was living in 1670.* 

Mrs. A. M. W. Stirlingt in her account of the Spencer- 
Stanhope family of Cannon Hall and Low Hall, Hors- 
forth, gives some confirmation of the Irish tradition. 
She states that one John Stanhope, who distinguished 
himself by taking the opposite side to his father in 
the disputes between King Charles and the Parlia- 
ment, went to Ireland, whence he had to fly for his 
life in consequence of the rising against the Protestants 
in 1641. He was assisted in his flight by a faithful 
servant named Thomas Hardy, who, dying at Hors- 
forth in 1683, left many descendants in that place. 
Amongst them were the above-named William Hardy 
(born 1715) and his son John (1745-1806). They were 
both in the law and employed by the Stanhopes, and 
the latter was their steward at Cannon Hall and 
Horsforth. Mrs. Stirling quotes a manuscript of John 
Spencer-Stanhope written in 1836. In this the writer, 
who knew John Hardy personally as his father's 
steward, refers to him as descended from the Irish 
servant of one of his ancestors, in devotion to whom 
he (the servant) had left his native country. 

This Irish tradition is not altogether irreconcilable 

* Gathortie Hardy, First Earl of Crafibrook, Vol. I, pp. 9-1 1. 
t Annals of a Yorkshire House (191 1), Vol. I, pp. 164-166, 
256 ; Vol. II, pp. 75-SC. 



44 Hardys Outside Westmorland 

with the supposition of a Lonsdale origin. It is 
known that at least two of the most important famihes 
in Kirkby Lonsdale, the Manserghs of Mansergh Hall 
and the Otways of Beckside, about the beginning of 
the parliamentary troubles sold their estates and 
migrated to Ireland.* Many people of less consequence 
probably went with or followed them, and amongst 
these may have been one of the Hardys. It is true 
this would scarcely agree with Thomas Hardy being 
descended from a Lonsdale emigrant and thus a 
native of Ireland, as he must have been born at least 
ten years before the rising in 1641, and there is no 
probability of a migration from Lonsdale earlier than 
the regime of Strafford, which began in 1632. We 
must therefore suppose he himself migrated to Ireland 
not long before 1641, and that the tradition as recorded 
in 1836 is slightly in error. A man who was known to 
have had a home in Ireland would naturally ^Q,t to 
be spoken of as a native. 

It is also worth mention as a fact suggestive of 
some connection between the remoter Cranbrook 
Hardys and Westmorland that the mother of the first 
Lord Cranbrook, Isabel, wife of John Hardy, Recorder 
of Leeds and M.P. for Bradford, came from a family 
resident in Lonsdale for two generations. Her father, 
as appears from a tombstone in Kirkby Lonsdale 
churchyard, was Richard Gathorne, son of the Rev. 
Miles Gathorne, and her sister Eliza was the wife of 
John Moore of Grimeshill, the representative through 
an ancestress of the Middletons of Middleton Hall, and 
a descendant in the male line of one of the oldest 
families in the parish. The mother of Richard 

* E. Conder, Kirkby Lonsdale Parish Registers. 



The Gatho-ntes 45 

Gathorne was Isabel Preston of Kirkby Lonsdale, 
where she was married to Miles Gathorne, November 
8, 1725, and where Richard was baptised August 31, 
1729. The entry describes Miles as curate of Kirkby 
Lonsdale. Richard Gathorne was buried there May 
20, 1786. The family were no doubt connected with 
Edward Gathorne of Old Hutton (between Kendal and 
Lonsdale), whose daughter, Mrs, Sarah Nicholson, 
was buried at Kendal in 1781, aged 71,* and John 
Gathorne of Burton-in-Kendal, buried there in 1773, 
aged 64.1 The family name is doubtless identical 
with that of the manor of Garthorn or Gaythorne Hall 
in the Westmorland parish of Crosby Ravensworth, 
referred to in 1671 by Sir Daniel Fleming in his 
Description of Westmorland as " Gawthorne, a good 
house belonging to Allan Bellingham of Over Levens 
in this County, Esquire. "J 

* E. Bellasis, Westmorland Church Notes, Vol. II, p. 48. 
t Ibid., Vol. I, p. 161. 

X Printed by the Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Arch. 
Soc, p. 24. 



CHAPTER VI 

ROLAND HARDY 

OF the nine contemporary branches of the Hardys, 
whom we enumerated at the outset as aheady 
planted in Kirkby Lonsdale in the middle of the 
sixteenth century, one of the most flourishing seems 
to have been the branch of Roland Hardy, who was 
baptised as the son of John Hardy on November i8, 
1543. He held three " states," or to give them the old 
and more correct name, three tenements. That on 
which he dwelt was at Beckfoot ; the others were " at 
Mansergh Hall " and at Terry Bank, both in Mansergh 
township. 

Beckfoot, or to be more exact, Barbon-beck-foot, 
is the point, as the name implies, at which the Barbon 
beck, having descended from the fells on the York- 
shire boundary and passed down Barbon dale and 
behind the village, reaches the level of the meadows 
bordering the Lune, which it soon joins. At this point 
the beck is crossed by a ford side by side with the still 
remaining pack-horse bridge already mentioned, and 
there are also what seem to be traces of the primitive 
works once connected with the manorial corn-mill. 
This spot, where there are now only two farm-houses 
adjoining the north side of the beck, goes by the name 
of High Beckfoot, thus distinguishing it from another 
spot about half a mile further south called Low Beck- 

46 



Beckfoot and the old Fords 47 

foot, which is near the junction with the Liinc of two 
little becks descending from Barbon Low Fell. Here 
are now only three or four cottages, but within living 
memory there were other buildings, including a mill 
and a dwelling-house of considerable size, since removed 
in consequence of the enlargement of Undcrley Park.* 
Beckfoot, at least in modern parlance, applies to all 
the land between these two little hamlets, or, in other 
words, to all the land in Barbon township bordering 
on the Lune ; but it seems that in 1822 it had come 
to belong rather to the lower hamlet as the more 
important of the two.f 

Before the construction in the latter part of the last 
century of the bridges in Underley Park and at Rig- 
maden, there were two fords across the Lune which 
have since gone out of use ; one just above High 
Beckfoot, and the other nearly opposite Low Beckfoot 
Cottages, and we may therefore conclude that Roland 
Hardy's dwelling was on the site of one of the two 
present groups. One might be inclined to prefer High 
Beckfoot as the older, but at neither is there any 
indication of a building more ancient than the eigh- 
teenth century. By crossing the Lune at either 
ford a road close along the right bank is reached 
running direct into Kirkby Lonsdale, and thus saving 
a distance of a mile compared with the route through 
Casterton and over Kirkby Lonsdale bridge. 

On this direct road, about half-way between the two 
fords, is a group of farm-buildings or cottages marking 

* Information on this point has been suppUed to me by Mr. 
Harrison, who has kindly shown me a plan and particulars dated in 
1828, setting out the property at Low Beckfoot and also near High 
Beckfoot formerly belonging to his family. 

t Map of the County by Greenwood. 



48 Roland Hardy 

the site of Mansergh Hall, near which was the second 
of Roland Hardy's possessions. The third, Terry 
(anciently Tyrergh) Bank, is an extent of rising ground 
sheltering against the south-west a group of buildings 
called Old Town on the old coach road from Kirkby 
Lonsdale to Kendal, but reached direct from Mansergh 
Hall by an ascent of about a mile along a steep lane 
and moorland track. 

From some ancient title-deeds, with copies and 
extracts from which I have been favoured by Mr. 
Conder, it seems that part of the Terry Bank property, 
subject to a rent of 3s. gd., had descended to Roland 
Hardy from his grandfather and more remote an- 
cestors as owners by tenant-right. Other part held by 
a rent of 2s. 6d. was acquired by him in 1580 from his 
wife's sister, Isabel Allen, she having acquired a 
half-share of it from her uncle, James Stockdale, by 
deed of February 10, 1577-8, and the other half-share 
from her mother or her grandfather, John Stockdale. 
Isabel was doubtless the elder sister of Margaret, who 
was Roland Hardy's wife. 

The Stockdales of Casterton are amongst the half- 
dozen which Mr. Conder recognises as the principal 
families in Kirkby Lonsdale in the sixteenth century. 
The name of Mrs. Stockdale appears as the owner of 
land adjoining Mr. Harrison's at Low Beckfoot in the 
plan of 1828 already referred to, and in the herald's 
visitation of 1615 there is a pedigree of Christopher 
Stockdale of Barbon, which, though very imperfect, 
purports to show that his ancestors had been in Kirkby 
Lonsdale for five generations or more, thus going back 
to about 1450. The will of Leonard Stockdale of 
Barbon, who died in April or May, 1569, and whose 



The Stockaales ; Te^ry Bank 49 

sister Jennet was the \\ife of Stephen Hardy, shows 
him to have been in possession of a considerable 
amount of property and in a superior position to 
that of an ordinary statesman. Besides his tenement 
in Barbon he had lands in the adjoining parishes of 
Dent and Sedbergh, and also in Norfolk and Suffolk, 
which latter he gave to his son Christopher, who was 
probably identical with the Christopher living in 1615. 
To his son George he gave £100, and to his daughter 
100 marks (£66 13s. 4d.), and he names Gepffrey 
Otway, doubtless identical with Sir Richard Shuttle- 
worth's bailiff, as one of his friends to receive rents 
and keep accounts for his children. His fortune was 
perhaps the result of trading in cloth. There was a 
John Stockdale of " Mansergh Hall houses," who died 
apparently childless in 1581, and whose estate in- 
cluded in book-debts and " cloth lying good and well " 
the sum of " £308 or thereabout," equivalent to at 
least five times its amount in modern money value. 

Roland Hardy, by his will dated July 26, 1588, gave 
his Terry Bank and Barbon properties to his eldest 
son Robert, who, however, seems to have died without 
issue in 1605, and consequently Robert's younger 
brother John became the owner. This John, in 1608, 
sold his Terry Bank property, or at least the part of 
it which he had inherited, to Edward Conder of 
Mansergh ; and there was subsequently a deed con- 
firming this, in which John Hardy's mother (then the 
wife of George Lindsay), George Lindsay himself, and 
John's wife Margaret joined, presumably to release 
any claim to the property on account of widow-right. 
John Hardy was buried December i, 1623, and from 
the record of his personal estate in the Richmond 



50 Roland Hardy 

Archdeaconry Court it seems that he died leaving a 
wife but no children, and without making a will. 
Moreover, it seems tolerably clear from the parish 
registers that all his three brothers who are mentioned 
in his father's will died young. Thus on his death, 
subject to his wife's widow-right, the title to his landed 
property would pass to another branch of his famil}^ 
It is probable that he had sold the Mansergh Hall 
property, but, as appears from the Richmond records, 
he was still of Beckfoot when he died, and his wife 
remained there till her death in 1635.* It is therefore 
not unlikely that the Beckfoot property held by him 
is the same as that held, as we shall see later, by the 
descendants of Edmund and Anthony Hardy, in whom 
we are specially interested, and that they were on his 
death (or ultimately) in the eldest male line traced 
from the nearest common male ancestor of the two 
branches. But of this we shall say more a little later. 
It seems also not unlikely that there was a family 
connection which led the Conders to purchase from 
the Hardys the property at Terry Bank. On January 
18, 1 550-1, Richard Conder and Joan Hardy were 
married at Kirkby Lonsdale, and the Edward Conder 
who bought Terry Bank from John Hardy, and who 
had an elder brother, Richard Conder of Hawkrigg, 
near Terry Bank, may have been their descendant. 
The present Mr. Edward Conder, whom I have fre- 
quently quoted as my authority on the subject of the 
parish registers, is descended from his namesake the 
purchaser of Terry Bank, which he now owns, it having 

* It seems doubtful whether she was entitled in these circum- 
stances to the whole or only a half of the profits of the holding, 
but I incline to think it was the whole (see p. 21, note). 



John the Spendthrift of Beck foot 51 

passed in the male line without a break ever since. 
The present house seems to have been built by the 
purciiaser of the land immediately after his acquiring 
it in 1608. 

On the death of John Hardy above-named it is 
recorded that his debts and funeral expenses exceeded 
his assets (exclusive, of course, of land) by ^Tio 7s. Gd., 
and we have therefore some reason to look upon him 
as something of a spendthrift. His widow Margaret 
does not seem to have altogether succeeded in balancing 
the account, for we find at her death an inventory 
under date January 27, 1635, in which her effects, 
indoor and outdoor, are valued at ;^45 7s. 8d. (including 
a spinning-wheel, cards, and heckle — 3s.), while her 
debts amount to ^^47 i8s. 4d. Amongst her creditors 
the only Hardy s are " Anthony Hardie wife " 
(i.e. widow) for i8s., and William Hardy for los. 
This tends to confirm the suggestion that on the death 
of Margaret the title to the Beckfoot property of the 
Roland branch passed to the Edmond and Anthony 
branch, of which, as we shall soon see, the head was 
then William, the son of Anthony. 

It is, however, noteworthy that administration of 
Margaret Hardy's effects was granted to one " John 
Hardy of Barbon-beck-foot, farmer " ; but, as no 
relationship is stated in the bond, it may be presumed 
either that there was some doubt as to his legitimacy 
as the son of John and Margaret, or that he was a 
distant relation of the husband's who claimed to be 
his heir. For, Margaret's estate being insolvent, the 
office of administrator would itself be a thankless 
responsibility, while if there was any doubt as to the 
heirship it would be of considerable advantage in those 



52 Roland Hardy 

days — " nine points of the law," says the proverb — 
to get into possession of the farm on any pretext, and 
defy the other claimants to make out their title. 

It is not unlikely therefore that, though the ad- 
ministrator's title as heir was a bad one, he may have 
held possession for a long time ; and it may have been 
not till many years later, if at all, that the Beckfoot 
estate of the Roland Hardys came to the descendants 
of Edmond and Anthony. On the above supposition 
we may identify the administrator with John, baptised 
as the son of Robert Hardy, November 15, 1583, and 
suppose that the want of any record of his death is to 
be put down to the irregularities of the period of the 
Civil War and Interregnum ; or if, on the other hand, 
his paternity was in question, he may account for an 
entry of the baptism on November 23, 1615, of John, 
son of John Hardy, which appears to have been 
inserted without authority at some later date. 



PART II 
OUR PEDIGREE 



"Ye good Christians, that like swallows and cuckoos 
love to change to more sunny hawghs, and now feed on 
richer pickings, turn yer thoughts for a minute to the 
shaws, the crofts and intacks of the north, to the strea- 
thecked cottages which gave ye birth." 

A bran new ll'ark by William de Worfat.* 

* .-l/ias William of Overthwaite, alias the Rev. William 
Hutton, Rector of Beetham from 1762 to tSii. His Bran 
new Wark, a tract " on good nebberhood," written in local 
dialect, was printed in 1785 and edited for the English 
Dialect Society by Professor Skcat in 1879. 



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CHAPTER I 

FIRST GENERATION : EDMUND HARDY AND 
HIS ANCESTORS 

THE earliest ancestor with whom we can connect 
our pedigree by positive evidence is Edmund 
Hardy, whose burial is recorded on October 30, 1571. 
He was no doubt bom before 1538, when the registers 
begin, and as he died only a few months after the 
baptism of his youngest child it may be presumed he 
was then comparatively young. His marriage does 
not appear. It probably took place in the period 
1556-60, for which no records have been preserved. 
This would agree with the first recorded of his children's 
baptisms, that of Anthony on December 16, 1561. 
We do not know his wife's name, but we have already 
referred to her as having a cross-cloth bequeathed to 
her by the \nll of ]Mrs. Agnes Hardy in 1605, and she 
is no doubt identical with " the wife of Edmond 
Hardy, widow," whose burial is entered November 
15, 1609. 

Before passing to the next generation we may state 
what seems probable, though not proved, as to the 
ancestiy of Edmund and his relationship to the Roland 
Hardys. 

In the first place should be mentioned a family 
custom, which prevailed amongst the statesmen, of 
naming one of the sons, and generally the eldest, after 

57 



58 Edrmtnd Hardy and His Ancestors 

his paternal grandfather. Professor Adam Sedgwick, a 
famous native of Dent and a descendant of the family 
of which we have already named one or two individuals, 
speaks of this custom as continuing down to his own 
time.* Accordingly we may suppose that the burial 
of Antony on December 28, 1544, refers to the father 
of Edmund, he being the only Antony in the register 
besides Edmund's son. We also find a trace of an 
earlier Edmund in the burial of the " wife " of Edmund 
Hardy on September 27, 1576. The name of Edmund 
being also uncommon in the family, we may probably 
suppose he was the brother of the earlier Antony and 
the uncle after whom our ancestor, being perhaps not 
the first-born of his father, was named. 

Antony Hardy the elder would be according to the 
probabilities of life contemporary with the grand- 
father of Roland Hardy of Beckfoot, who also owned 
Terry Bank, and it seems to me very probable that the 
two grandfathers were brothers. It seems clear from 
various wills and inventories of the Roland branch 
that the grandfather of Roland had two brothers, 
Robert and John. The latter is probably identical 
with John Hardy, who was buried May 21, 1571, and 
from whose inventory, dated the previous day, we 
have already quoted. He seems to have had only one 
son, Roland, who died in 1563, aged six. The inventory 
is made by Matthew Stockdale, Edmund Hardy, and 
John Hardy. Edmund, according to our theory, 
would be his nephew, the son of his brother Antony. 
John might be another nephew, either the son of 
Robert or an elder son of Antony. In either case he 
would fit in as the father of Robert and grandfather of 

* Memorial by the Trustees of Cowgill Chapel (i86S), p. 52. 



A Qitesttonabie Title 



59 



John, baptised in 1583, who. as wc have supposed, 
claimed the heirship of the Beckfoot property on the 
death of Margaret Hardy in 1635. 

The father of the five brothers, according to the 
grandiatherly custom, would presumably be John, 
and the grandfather of Roland would be Roland also. 
Thus the pedigree would take the following shape : 

[JOHNjy 



[ROLAND]=f 



Robert 

living 1579 



Antony = 
.1. 1 544 



Edmund 

(wid. d. 1576) 



John 
d. 1 57 1 



JOHN== 



Roland - 
(1543-1588) 



I 
[John]= 



Robert 

{? bap. 

1556-60*) 



Edmund= 
d. 1571 i 



Antony = 
(1561-1610) 



John 
(I 584-1623) 



John the administrator 
(bap. 1583) 



William 
(1608-1682) 



The claim of John, the administrator to the heirship 
of the Roland branch, as against William, would then 
be good : first, if he were descended from Robert, and 
Robert were older than Antony ; or, secondly, if he 
were descended from Antony, and his grandfather 
were older than Edmund. This is a good illustration 
of the difficulty that attended a question of title in 
the days when the common evidence of birth was the 
parish register, which in no case went further back 
than 1538. 

• The gap in the registers for this period would account for this 
baptism not being recorded. 



CHAPTER II 

SECOND GENERATION : ANTHONY HARDY 

THE parish register shows the following baptisms 
of the children of Edmund Hardy : 

Anthony, December i6, 1561. 
A son (unnamed), April 17, 1563. 
Alice, April 11, 1565. 
Helen, November 30, 1570. 

Of these we have no further record except of 
Anthony. He married December 19, 1601, Elizabeth 
Middleton, and was buried, like his father, after a 
short connubial career, on July 28, 1610. He was no 
doubt the " poor householder " who was given by 
Agnes Hardy half a peck of bigg. 

Elizabeth his wife was the daughter of William 
Middleton of Lupton, a township in the extreme west 
of the parish, and therefore somewhat remote from 
Barbon. His marriage is recorded without the name 
of his wife on November 12, 1563, and his daughter 
Elizabeth was baptised October 28, 1572. From the 
Middleton wills and inventories quoted above and 
some others, it seems that there was more than one 
branch of the Middleton family — or perhaps it would 
be more correct to say simply more than one Middleton 
family— then flourishing at Lupton, and they were 
there at least a century later. William, above-named, 
was buried September 12, 1580, leaving his wife Isabel 
with two sons and four daughters, of whom the eldest 

60 



The Middletons of Luptmi 6i 

was not more than fifteen, and the youngest were 
twins aged about a year and a half.* 

By his will dated April ii, 1580, " William Medle- 
ton," as the scribe calls him, charges a sum of {3 6s. 8d. 
on his tenement in favour of his younger son John. 
Stephen is to have at twenty half the tenement, which 
is to remain in his mother's hands till then, and she is 
to have the other half during widowhood. Stephen is 
to have the husbandry gear and two great arks, and 
the rest of the goods are to be divided between the 
other children. The wife Isabel is executrix, and Robert 
Burrow and Anthon\' Burrow, probably her brothers, are 
appointed supervisors along with Adam Middleton and 
George Middleton. The total of the inventoiy, which 
contains the ordinary articles of farming and household 
stock, is £55 I OS. The widow Isabel survived her hus- 
band upwards of thirty-two years, dj'ing in February, 
1613. Her will is as follows : To my son Stephen Middle- 
ton's children, los. ; to my son-in-law Matthew Faucitt's 
children, los. ; to my daughter, Matthew Faucitt's wife, 
20s. ; to my daughter Elizabeth Hardy and her children, 
a stirke ; and to my son John Middleton, 20s. To her 
two youngest daughters, the t\vins, Joan and Isabel, she 
gives all the rest she has to dispose of. No doubt they 
were her chief assistants in carrying on the half-share 
of the farm which she had held since Stephen came of 
age. As may be conjectured from the following 
inventory of her effects dated February 23, 1613, the 
dairying department was the scene of most of their 

• The baptisms of Stephen and the eldest daughter probably 
took place during the period 1 566-1 570, for which the register is a 
blank. The others (including William, who was buried within ten 
days of his baptism) are duly registered in the years 1571, 1572, 
1575, and 1578. 



62 



Anthony Hardy 



labours. The stock of cheese, valued in round figures at 
10 marks, must according to current prices, say i|d. per 
lb. (which is probably more than it was put at for probate 
purposes), have amounted in quantity to 1200 lb.* 

The valuers are Arthur Middleton, Arthur Burrow, 
Edmund Middleton, and John Middleton. The last 
was probably her younger son, and perhaps identical 
with John of Aykrigg End, who died in 1619 as above 
mentioned. Stephen, whom I have not succeeded in 
tracing further, may have died without issue. There 
is still a farm at a spot called, on the Ordnance map, 
Aikrigg Green in Lupton. It must have been a bleak 
moorland region before the modern roads and planta- 
tions came into existence. 











£ 


s. 


d. 


I horse 




I 


6 


8 


2 oxen 








5 


6 


8 


3 kine 








7 








5 young beasts 








4 


13 


4 


I swine 










5 





Pullen 










2 





Cheese 








6 


13 


4 


All the crops 








3 


16 





Meal and malt 










16 





All her apparel 








I 








Sacks, pokes, and winding-clothes 


[fo 


r 






cheese-making] 








13 


4 


Hemp and ... 


. 






4 





Brass and pewter 


. , 




I 


10 





All the wood vessell . 








6 


8 


A quarter of beef [salt. 


of course] . 






5 





Girdle and heckle 








3 





2 old arks and a chest . 


. 






3 


J 


Total 


• 


• 




£34_ 


4 


_4 



* Rogers, Hist. Agricttlt., Vol. VI, gives examples of the ntail 
price in London in 1594 and 1601 as 2^d. and 2d. per lb. 



J\fidiileio)is and Middlctons 63 

As to debts it is briflly but significantly added, 
" nothing owcn to hir or by hir." 

The reader will notice that Elizabeth Hardy is 
singled out for a legacy in kind instead of in money, 
and that her stirk (presumably one of the two oxen 
valued together at £5 6s. 8d.) would be worth more 
than any of the sums given to the other children and 
grandchildren. May we interpret this as showing 
some thoughtful sympathy with the circumstances in 
which the widow of poor Anthony Hardy found her- 
self at this time ? As we shall see, he had left her with 
four little children, the eldest only seven, and the two 
youngest, including the son and heir, less than two 
years old. She survived her husband nearly forty 
years, being buried November 26, 1648, aged 76. 

The name of Middleton is one of the most familiar, 
and at the same time one of the most distinguished, 
in the records of Kirkby Lonsdale. The Middletons 
of Middleton Hall were lords of the manor of Middleton 
for ten generations, from the time of Edward HI till 
near the end of the seventeenth century. One is 
therefore tempted to enquire what relationship existed 
between the lords of the manor and the Middletons of 
Lupton. Was the wife of poor Anthony Hardy a 
descendant of some younger son of the Hall ? The 
answer seems to be that it may well be so, but to 
prove it so would be a hopeless task. 

Younger sons whose descendants are entirely un- 
accounted for appear numerously in the pedigree of 
Middleton of Middleton Hall, and to some extent this 
must account for the very frequent occurrence of the 
name at the beginning of the parish registers. It 
occurs, in fact, in the first twenty- five years twice as 



64 Antho7iy Ha^'dy 

often as Hardy. And, moreover, the calendars of the 
Richmond Archdeaconry Court from 1550 to 1600 
contain not only a corresponding number of entries 
for Kirkby Lonsdale Middletons, but there are also 
half as many again relating to the surrounding parishes 
in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Now, assuming that 
Middleton in Lonsdale was the source of all these 
individuals, it b}^ no means follows that they were 
derived from a common family stock ; for at the 
period when surnames came into use (some centuries 
before there was any Middleton of Middleton Hall) 
many ordinary individuals quite unconnected with 
each other by birth must have adopted the place-name 
as the name of their family ; and, as the records above 
referred to suggest, this would probably be most often 
the case when such individuals migrated from Middle- 
ton into one of the adjoining parishes or townships, 
where they would naturally be called " of Middleton " 
for want of already possessing any other patronymic. 
This is, I think, enough to show the hopelessness of 
obtaining any definite result from the existing materials. 
But for the particular problem that concerns us there 
is another difficulty — the absence of any serviceable 
materials at all. Of the younger sons of the pedigree 
family nothing is recorded beyond the names, and we 
therefore cannot trace from them downwards. On the 
other hand, to trace from the Middletons of Lupton 
upwards seems equally impossible, as our first step 
would take us beyond the limit both of recorded wills 
and of parish registers. However, as it is not by any 
means impossible that our Lupton ancestress was 
after all a descendant of this lords of the manor of 
Middleton, it may be permissible to give some account 



Middle ton of Middldon Hall 65 

of that armorial family — probably in its day the 
most distinguished in the history of Kirkby 
Lonsdale.* 

As we have said, they held the lordship of Middleton 
from the time of Edward III till near the end of the 
seventeenth century, when the male line failed. 
According to Nicolson and Burn the property was 
then divided between two heiresses, and the elder sold 
her portion, including the manor, the Hall, and the 
rest of the demesnes, to one Benjamin Middleton, 
who, notwithstanding his name, was not related to the 
family who had so long possessed the estate. By a 
mere chance, when verifying a reference to Ogilby's 
Road Book of 1675, I pitched upon a copy in the 
British Museumf which I have no doubt belonged to 
this very person. Above the frontispiece on the left 
is the signature " B. Middleton " in a hand fairly 
corresponding with the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, and on the right is the impression in red 
wax of a shield bearing a saltire engrailed, which is 
certainly the blazon of Middleton of Middleton Hall. 
This unexpected meeting with Mr. Benjamin Middleton 
is an odd coincidence, but the use of a seal of arms is 
unfortunately far from conclusive evidence of one's 
pedigree. Mr. Benjamin's notions on the subject may 
have been somewhat similar to those of a " modern 
major-general," who, having bought an estate which 
included a chapel " with its contents," maintained 
that the ancestors lying in the chapel were now his, 
and that it was within his competence as their " de- 

• Our account is based on the pedigrees in the heralds' visita- 
tions of 161 5 and 1664, which also seem to be the material used by 
NicoLson and Burn. 

t Britannia, Volume the First, etc. The press-mark is 568. i. 10. 

F 



66 Antho7iy Hardy 

scendant by purchase " to bring honour or disgrace 
upon their escutcheon. 

However this may be, Middleton Hall is now the 
property of the family of Moore of Grimeshill, the 
lineal descendants of the younger co-heiress of 
the Middletons of that ilk, from whom they inherited 
the other portion of the family estate. The Hall is 
now a farm-house, and in its diminished state bears 
testimony to the loyalty of its owners to the losing 
side during the Great Rebellion. Major-General John 
Middleton, a younger son of the house, was killed at 
Hopton Heath, and his two brothers Richard and 
Christopher also lost their lives fighting in the royal 
cause. Their brother William, who was a colonel in 
the king's army, was more fortunate, and we find him 
in 1664 certifying the family history on the herald's 
visitation of that year. 

Kirkby Lonsdale, indeed, seems to have been some- 
thing of a royalist hotbed. In a list of " delinquents " 
in Westmorland annexed to a letter to the Committee 
for Compounding Royalists' Estates, dated February 
22, 1650, are the names of William Middleton of 
Middleton (no doubt Colonel Middleton above men- 
tioned), Henry Ward of Rigmaden, Henry Wilson of 
Underley (the beautiful estate on the Lune between 
Kirkby Lonsdale and Barbon), George Buchanan, the 
unfortunate Vicar of Kirkby, and, amongst humbler 
persons, we may add, as descended from families 
connected by marriage with the Hardys some genera- 
tions earlier, John Beck and Bridgett Bouskell.* 
(Was it not an Agnes Bouskell who in those days 

* Committee for Compounding, etc. (Record Office Calrs.), Vol. I, 
p. 176. 



The Civil War ; Middlcton Hall 67 

boasted the possession of a jack, a salette, and a two- 
handed sword, and a Thomas Bouskcll whose sword 
and dagger were priced at ten shilUngs ?) In 1646 
we find the then Wilson of Underley is marked down 
for sequestration as having served as a captain of foot 
under Sir PhiHp Musgrave of Eden Hall. Sir John 
Otway of Ingmire, in Sedbergh, descended from a 
branch of another of the old stocks in Middleton 
township, was ejected from his fellowship at Cam- 
bridge for refusing the Solemn League and Covenant, 
and " did not show less courage in the field against the 
sworn enemies of the kingdom than he had formerly 
done in the university." He received his knighthood 
in 1673 in recognition of his services both military and 
diplomatic in the war and the Restoration.* Ingmire 
Hall is still owned by his descendants. 

Middleton Hall, according to Whitaker,f was 
probably built by Sir Geoffrey Middleton, who was 
knighted by Henry VIII, and was a major-general in 
that king's expedition to Boulogne in 1543. As a 
salaried olTicer in the service of the Border { he was 
evidently a most important person in the neighbour- 
hood of Lonsdale. He was buried at Kirkby Lonsdale 
in 1545. Later and more accurate authorities § date 
the Hall from about the middle of the fifteenth century. 
The domestic part of it shows the close resemblance, 
springing from the same early type, between the old 
manorial hall of the pre-Tudor period and the states - 

♦ See the Lije of [his friend] the Rev. John Barwick, by Peter 
Barvvick. 

I Richmondshire. 

X Duckett, Cumb. and Westm. Ant. Sac. Trans., Vol. Ill, p. 206. 

§ Old Manorial Halls oj Westmorland, etc., by Michael W. Taylor, 
P- 237; J. F. Curwen, C. and W. Atit. Sac. Trans. (N.S.). XII. 



68 Anthony Hardy 

man's dwelling-house, as we have described it above, 
in the sixteenth and following centuries. After entering 
the outer courtyard you pass into the mell-doors or 
screens, which lead out again into the inner yard. 
On your right a door leads from the screens into the 
hall, and others on the left into what was once the 
buttery, kitchen, etc. As you advance into the hall, 
with its windows of stone tracery, you have behind you 
the fire-place, and against the opposite wall stands a 
great carved oak aumbry. Behind this wall is a 
charming withdrawing-room wainscoted with oak from 
floor to ceiling. At this end also are the staircase 
and doors leading to the modern kitchen and other 
offices which have taken the place of the buildings 
formerly looking on to the inner court. 

The Middleton pedigrees in the heralds' visitations 
of 1615 and 1664* show their connection with many 
well-known north-country families, and their arms 
(argent, a saltire engrailed sable) may be seen dis- 
played with various alliances in the Middleton chapel, 
or rather what remains of it at the north-east corner 
of Kirkby Lonsdale church. In this chapel is a 
truncated tomb with a pair of recumbent effigies, 
which, according to Nicolson and Burn, represent the 
John Middleton who died in 1580 and his wife Ann, 
one of the Tunstalls of Thurland Castle. This attribu- 
tion is confirmed by John Middleton's will,t in which 
he directs that he shall be buried in " my chaunsel at 
Kirkby-lonsdall." 

For the sake of the reader who may be interested in 



* Edited by Joseph Foster (i8go). 

t Proved in the Richmond Archdeaconry Court, 1580. 



The Musf^rave Pecfioyee 69 

pushini::^ an enquiry about a possible ancestor, however 
doubtful the result, into the domain of royal descents, 
we may note here what appears to arise from a match 
of one of the Middletons with a daughter of the Mus- 
graves. According to the visitation pedigrees of 1615, 
Thomas Middleton, the father of Sir Geoffrey, was the 
son of Thomas by his wife Isabel, daughter of Sir 
Richard Musgrave of Hartley Castle ; and Sir Richard 
was the son of Sir Thomas by his wife Alice, daughter 
of Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge, who was 
a paternal grandson of Edward III and paternal 
grandfather of Edward IV. He is known in history 
(and Shakespeare) as one of the three leaders beheaded 
for conspiracy against the house of Lancaster at the 
beginning of the reign of Henry V. It was, in fact, 
his son, the Duke of York, in whose name the Wars of 
the Roses were begun. There is, however, some doubt 
as to the fact of this marriage of his daughter Alice — 
indeed, as to the very existence of the bride — as in the 
pedigree of 1664 no Ahce Plantagenet is mentioned. 
This cannot be overlooked, although the later pedigree 
is, on the face of it, far from perfect. The mother of 
Alice is said in the earlier pedigree to have been Maud, 
daughter of Thomas, Lord Clifford, who was un- 
doubtedly Richard Plantagenet's second wife ; but 
the assertion that there was any surviving issue of this 
marriage is contradicted by the finding at the in- 
quisition on the death of IMaud* that she had left no 
issue, and that consequently her heir was her brother 
Thomas. Nevertheless, though Ahce Plantagenet does 
not appear in the Musgrave genealogy as generally 

* hiq. p.m. of Matilda, Countess of Cambridge (then widow of 
Lord Latymer), 25 Hen. VI, No. 21. 



yo Anthony Hardy 

set out,* it seems that, however the various differences 
between the visitation pedigrees are explained or 
reconciled, there must be either a gap or one " Eliza- 
beth " (of undisclosed origin) about the place where 
Alice would come in ; so that after all we may con- 
jecture that her existence was a fact, and that the 
reason for its being overlooked by the jury at the 
inquisition was a question, not always so easy to 
answer, as to whether she was born in or out of 
wedlock. 

It would be no very extravagant supposition that 
her father should so far resemble a few others of his 
line as to consider one wife at a time a somewhat short 
allowance. 

* The Musgraves would probably scarcely regard the supposed 
Alice as adding anything to the ancient dignity of their own descent. 



CHAPTER III 

THIRD GENERATION : WILLIAM HARDY, SENIOR 

THE parish register records the baptisms of the 
following children of Anthony Hardy : 

Margaret, May 5, 1603. 

Elizabeth, March 20, 1605-6. 

William and Isabel, December 18, 160S. 

Isabel we fmd was buried on March 20, 1619-20, but 
we have no entry to show what became of either of 
the other daughters. This is no doubt owing to the 
disturbed state of things during the Civil War. The 
vicar, George Buchanan, was sorely persecuted by 
two of his Cromwellian parishioners, and actually in 
gaol several times ; the last for a period of three years. 
From March, 1642, to April, 1643, all entries are 
wanting. From about April, 1645, when one William 
Cole seems to have been intruded into the Vicarage, 
until the Restoration, the registers were very carelessly 
kept.* Thus, whatever may have been the case with 
the two sisters, who may or may not have married, 
it can scarcely be doubted that their brother William 
was married near the beginning of the gap between 
March, 1642, and April, 1643, his eldest child, as 
recorded, being baptised in May, 1643. Of his wife 
we only know that her christian name was Christabel, 

* Edward Conder, Kirkby Lonsdale Parish Registers ; B. Night- 
ingale, The Ejected of 1662 in Cumberland, etc., p. 1014. 

71 



72 William Hardy, Senior 

and that she was buried on February 20, 1678-9. 
William himself, described as " William Hardy, 
senior,* of Barbon," followed her three and a half 
years later, being buried August 25, 1682.* 

It will be noticed that this William did not receive 
at his christenings the name of his paternal grand- 
father Edmund, but that of his grandfather on the 
side of his mother. In this we may perhaps perceive 
a becoming submission on the part of the " poor 
householder " to superior family pretensions on the 
part of his wife. In the next generation also the 
paternal names are neglected, but it will be seen that 
on the family fortunes somewhat reviving the old 
custom again comes into favour. 

The following curious inventory of Gaffer William's 
personal effects, written in a far from clerkly hand, is 
preserved amongst the Richmond records. The spell- 
ing, which I have reproduced liteyatim, is interesting, 
as echoing something of the accent of the dales : 

April the sih, 1683. 
A true invatery of the goodes of Wilyam Hardy 
lat deceased. 





£ s. 


d. 


Onehatt 


I 


4 


Collr, dublet and bretches . 


6 


4 


A dublet and bretches 


I 





On[e] pare of shus and hosse 


I 





2 shirts ..... 


2 





A bed of cloese [set of bed clothes] 


6 


6 


One chest .... 


2 





In all . 


. £1 


2 



* He was doubtless called William Hardy, senior, to distinguish 
him from another William Hard}' of Barbon, whose death appears 
in the Richmond Archdeaconry records in March, lOgg. 



A Retired StaUsnian 73 

Thcas goods prised by 

Mr. Robert Ustinson,* 
Thomas Selme § his mark, 
WiLYAM W Bkockbank, his mark, 

WiLYAM X PaKSIVELL. 

Notwithstanding the very small value of this 
veritably personal estate and the fact that the de- 
ceased's only surviving child, Edward, was necessarily 
entitled to the whole of it, a regular bond was entered 
into by the latter for payment of debts and due 
administration. Both Edward Hardy and his surety, 
Thomas Read, who joined in the bond, are described 
as of Kirkby Lonsdale. This probably means the 
parish, not the town ; as it will be seen from what 
follows that they were probably both of Barbon. 
Read was probably Edward Hardy's brother-in- 
law. 

The exceedingly limited nature of old William's 
personal estate might at first be taken as an indication 
of extreme misery, but, on the contrary, the true view, 
as I would venture to suggest, is that at something under 
threescore years and ten he had reached the sunmiit 
of a dalesman's felicity. For though he had evidently 
retired from business and handed over his stock and 
household effects to his son and heir, he would still be 
master of the family estate — if there was one, and 
from this all his mortal wants would be amply 
supphed. 

" How blest is he who crowns in shades like these 
A youth of labour with an age of ease." 

• Presumably also the scribe. 



74 William Hardy, Senior 

With the loss of his wife this feUcity must have 
been dashed, but within a few months she was in a 
sense replaced by a daughter-in-law, and he lived long 
enough to see the birth of his eldest grandson, to 
whom his name was given. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HEARTH-TAX RETURN FOR 167O 

BEFORE passing from William Hardy the elder 
to the next generation we may notice the 
glimpse afforded by the return for the Hearth Tax in 
Westmorland, preserved in the Public Record Office 
for the year 1670.* According to this document the 
number of hearths in the whole parish of Kirkby 
Lonsdale was 571, exclusive of those exempt as be- 
longing to dweUings under the value of 20s. a year, or 
occupied by persons not possessed of £10 worth of 
goods or excused from poor-rate. The number of 
houses was 381, most of which had only one hearth. 
In the hst for Kirkby Lonsdale itself there were 102 
houses, with 170 hearths taxed and 19 exempt. 
Amongst the former we may notice in passing the 
school-house with two hearths, and the vicar, ^Ir. 
Hoyle's, also with two. 

In Lupton there were 37 houses with 43 hearths, 
mcluding William Middlcton's and John Middleton's 
with one hearth each, and two hearths exempt. 

In Middleton there were 62 houses, all taxed, with 
loi hearths, including Widow Moore's with five hearths, 
John Middleton, Esquire's (Middleton Hall), with seven, 

* Exchequer Records : Lay Subsidies for Westmorland (see 
Appendix II below.) The return is authenticated at Kendal quarter 
sessions by the Clerk of the Peace, under date January 10, 22nd 
Charles II (1671). 

75 



76 The Hearth-Tax Return for 1670 

Thomas Otway's with two, and Nicholas Otway's 
with two and one. 

In Barbon there were 36 houses with 55 hearths, all 
taxed, including Samuel Gibson's with one hearth and 
Richard Shuttleworth, Esquire's, with two. 

In Casterton there were 33 houses with 44 hearths, 
all taxed, including William Hardy's with one. 

Besides the last-named, who must, I think, be 
identified with our Gaffer William, there are four other 
Hardys in the list. In Kirkby Lonsdale there are 
WiUiam Hardy with three hearths and Robert with two, 
and in Barbon there are Robert with two and Edmund 
with one. The first is doubtless identical with " William 
Hardy of Kirkby Lonsdale " who was buried there 
March 21, 1696-7, and the last with " Edmund Hardy 
of the Town-end in Barbon" who was buried in 
September, 1680, and whose will was proved October 
15 following. Traces of the two Roberts are not 
wanting in the register of baptisms, but they appear 
there no further. 

The number of our cousins in their ancient habitat 
is thus seen to be much diminished, but it should be 
added that the Hearth Tax return probably somewhat 
exaggerates their paucity, for it is well known that 
the tax was greatly resented and the inquisitions of the 
official chimney-hunter were not too diligently pressed. 
He seems to have forgotten to enter one Richard 
Hardy, who appears from the parish registers to have 
represented the Casterton branch down to his death 
in September, 1679. There was also a widow Ellen 
Hardy " of Mansergh Hall houses " buried on June 
4, 1677, but the township of Mansergh is entirely 
omitted from the list, and consequently the Condcrs 



The Identity of Gaffer William yy 

and other statesmen who appear there on the manor 
court-rolls in 1664* must have been let off. It seems 
difficult to believe that in such circumstances as then 
existed in country places a tax of two shillings a year 
per chimney can have been worth collecting. It was 
promptly abolished in the first year of William and 
Mary (1688) after being twenty years on the Statute 
Book. 

The identity of our ancestor William with the 
William Hardy entered in Castcrton is not open, I 
think, to much doubt, though the tax-collector seems 
to have indulgently rolled him into one with his 
cousin Richard. It is possible, though somewhat 
unlikely, that in 1670 he actually lived in Casterton 
township, and only came to Barbon later ; for, even 
assuming that he ultimately died at Beckfoot (as his 
son Edward certainly did) we have no evidence as to 
when or how he acquired his home there — whether on 
the death of his cousin's widow Margaret in 1635 or 
later ; whether by inheritance or purchase, or whether 
it was really his own or his son's. But it seems more 
probable that the compiler of the return, being a 
Crown officer and not a local constable, f did not 
trouble to follow the boundaries of the townships or 
manors, and, finding Beckfoot connected by a practic- 
able highway with Casterton, and not with Barbon 
village, assigned it to the former " constable-wick " 
accordingly. We have already seen that there was an 
ancient highway from Casterton to the ford at High 
Beckfoot passing through Low Beckfoot, whereas 
from Barbon even to-day High Beckfoot is only 

♦ According to a list supplied to me by Mr. Edward Conder, f.s.a. 
t Under the Amending Act of 1664 (16 Car. II, cap. 3). 



78 The Hearth-Tax Return f 07' 1670 

reached directly by mere footpaths, and the present 
lane to Low Beckfoot can scarcely be older than the 
eighteenth-century coach-road from which it diverges. 
It may be noted here that in our Gaffer William we 
have the only link where it is possible to suggest a 
doubt in our chain of descent, as we have no con- 
firmatory evidence of his identity with the son of 
Antony christened in 1608. All we can say is that the 
parish register contains no other baptism with which 
he corresponds, while on the other hand the deaths of 
the two other Williams, one of Barbon and the other 
of Kirkby, recorded in 1699 and 1697 respectively, 
make it extremely unlikely that either of them was 
born so far back as 1608. They may be easily ac- 
counted for by baptisms entered in 1619 and 1646, 
to say nothing of possible omissions during the Crom- 
wellian period when the registers were imperfectly 
kept. 



CHAPTER V 

FOURTH GENERATION : THOMAS AND EDWARD 
HARDY 



T 



HE parish register shows baptisms of the following 
children of William Hardy : 



Thomas, May ii, 1643. 
Edward, January 9, 1644-5. 

Here, as in the previous generation, the paternal hne 
is ignored in the choice of christian names. 

Thomas died in his father's lifetime, leaving a will 
dated November 11, 1676, and signed by the testator's 
mark. By this document, after commending the place 
of his burial to his executors' discretion, he disposes 
of the " httle worldly estate God hath given me " as 
follows : To his brother Edward, £10 ; to George 
RoUinson, son of George Rollinson, 2s. 6d. ; to Isabel, 
daughter of George Woodhouse, 2s. 6d. ; to his 
father William and his mother " Restabell," all the 
rest. He appoints his father and mother executors. 

The half-crown legatees were no doubt god-children. 
The parish register shows Isabel Woodhouse to have 
been at this time in her fifth year. We are therefore 
debarred from romancing on the supposition of a more 
tender relationship, our uncle Thomas, the testator, 
being thirty-three. 

The inventory of his effects indicates that he was 

79 



8o 



Thomas and Edward Hardy 



not a farmer, but apparently a clothier, carrying goods 
from his father's farm to the market, or possibly to 
his shop at Kirkby. Perhaps he was also a horse- 
dealer. 

Inventory of goods and chattels of Thomas Hardy, 
late of Barbon, appraised November 20, 1676, 
by Thomas Fawcett, Edmond Garnett, Samuel 
Ottway, and James Wadeson. 

In purse, apparel, bridle and sadle 
in Wollen cloth .... 
in Hempe or lininge [linen] cloth at 

Kirkby . 
in Cloth at Barbon 
in Yarne . 
in Stockins 
in Horses . 
One chiste 

Oweing for horses to him 
in Bonds . 
Found uncrost [not crossed out in his 

books, uncancelled] ... 79 



£ 


s. 


d. 


4 


13 


4 


I 


3 


6 


I 


15 







14 


2 




12 


6 




5 


4 


3 










I 





7 


15 





33 


13 


7 



In all [apparently wrongly cast] £61 2 5 



The bond for administration of Thomas's effects 
given by his father William and joined in by his 
brother Edward as a surety, is signed by both of them 
as marksmen, but we notice that Edward, on his 
father's death six years later, signs his name in a 
clumsy but very legible hand with the surname under 
the christian name, which has a superfluous " y " 
added to it evidently by inadvertence. He seems 



Edwards Marriiwe and Death 8 1 



v> 



then to have been making the most of his slender 
attainments as a scribe. 

From the will of Thomas it may be inferred that 
whatever may have been the capacity — or want of 
capacity — of his father, his mother, being equally 
joined as executor and residuary legatee, was not a 
person to be ignored. We may therefore credit 
lildward with some prudence and patience in delaying 
his wedding till the ancient dame had made her last 
journey from Barbon to the parish church. Thence 
but three months later, on May 24, 1679, being in his 
thirty-sixth year, he brought home his bride, Isabel 
Reade, to take the woman's place in his father's house. 
In the register both bride and bridegroom are described 
as of Barbon. The Reades appear in the registers 
rarely and rather late, and there is no baptismal entry 
corresponding with Isabel Hardy. This may be due 
to the carelessness of William Cole, who, as already 
stated, was intruded into the Vicarage from about 
1645 to 1660. There is, however, on March 27, 1657, 
the burial of Agnes Reade, wife of Christopher Reade 
of Barbon, and it is not unlikely that these were 
Isabel's parents. 

Edward Hardy was buried at Kirkby Lonsdale on 
October 8, 1710, and on the 14th administration 
of his personal estate was granted to his son William 
for the use of his widow Isabella. In the administra- 
tion bond Edward is described as of Beckfoot, husband- 
man, and William as of Barbon. From what follows 
I am inclined to think that William, still a bachelor, 
though nearly thirty, had not yet left his father's 
home. 

The following is the inventory of the latter's per- 



£ 


s. 


d. 


2 


10 


o 


2 








I 


10 






82 Thomas and Edivard Hardy 

sonalty, dated the 12th and exhibited October 14, 
1710 : 

Purse and apparel .... 

Bedstocks, bedding (linen and wollen) 

Wooden vassill, brass and pewther 

Chists, arks, chaires, formes, tables, 

stooles and cushions . . .100 

Scutles, ridles, sacks, pokes, and winnow- 
ing cloth .... 

Earthen vassills and iron utensils 

Meal, Malte, and other provision , 

Ploughs, harrows, ploughgeare, boards, 

and shilves . . . . . no 

Bridle, sadle, carts, cartgeere, and 
wheels . 

Husbandry geere 

Poultry and dung-hill 

Four kine 

Six young bease 

Corne and hay . 

Debts owing to the deced 



15 





9 


6 









Total* 





15 







10 







5 





15 








10 








20 








35 









£105 5 6 



William Hardy writes his name to the administration 
bond in a fairly penmanlike hand. 

* To make this total there is an error in casting or an omission 
of items to the amount of £ii,. 



CHAPTER VI 

FIFTH GENERATION : CHILDREN OF EDWARD 
HARDY 

'' I ^HESE, it seems, were as follows : 

-*- William, who was probably the eldest, as on 
his father's death administration of the estate was 
granted to him with the " tuition " (or guardianship) 
of his sister Agnes. 

Thomas, baptised September 23, 1683. 
John, baptised November 18, 1688. 
Edward, buried November 7, 1692 ; and 
Agnes, who, as already mentioned, was a minor, on 
October 14, 1710. 

Neither William's, Edward's, nor Agnes's baptism 
is registered at Kirkby Lonsdale — why, we are unable 
to say, but the brotherhood of the three surviving 
brethren is amply made out by the evidences which 
follow. 

This generation makes an epoch in the history of 
our family. WiUiam, the eldest son, who seems to 
have been the first of his race to be fairly able to wTite, 
continued in the traditional calhng of his ancestors ; 
but on his father's death he married and migrated 
from the old home, and though his residence was no 

83 



84 Children of Edward Hardy 

further off than the adjoining parish it involved a 
change in the mode of HveUhood as well as a change 
of scene. His younger brothers made a much more 
decided move. They both became clergymen, and 
settled down in the West Riding of Yorkshire. 

Their mother, and presumably their sister Agnes, 
were left in possession of the ancestral tenement at 
Beckfoot, and we shall find reason to suppose that at 
least the mother remained there till her death. She 
was buried at Kirkby Lonsdale, November 28, 1724. 



§1. William Hardy of Park House 

On January 27, 1710-11, WilHam Hardy, being 
still described as of Barbon, was married at the 
church of Tunstal, just over the Lancashire border, 
to Elizabeth Flasby, who was presumably of that 
parish and of a family originating still further east, 
but not found in the registers of Kirkby Lonsdale. 
There is, in fact, a hamlet called Flasby in the parish 
of Gargrave in the West Riding, and it occurs as a 
family name in the will of John Middleton of West- 
house in Thornton, a Yorkshire parish adjoining 
Kirkby Lonsdale, dated January 16, 1613-4.* 

After his marriage William Hardy lived until 171 9, 
and perhaps later, at Park House in the parish of 
Tunstal. It is now a farm-house to which are attached 
about a thousand acres of land. It stands on the right 
bank of the Leek beck, a tributary of the Lune, and 
looks up the valley towards the fells above Barbon. 
To reach it there is a drive through the grounds for 

* Richmoad Archdeaconry Court. 



The Wilsons of Dallavi To7vcr S5 

about half a iiiilo from the entrance gate at Cowan 
Bridge, by which the Lcck is crossed. These grounds 
are, in fact, the park belonging to, but quite detached 
from, the ancient castle of Thurland, once the strong- 
hold of the Tunstals. " The park " is actually men- 
tioned in the will of Brian Tunstal, the " Stainless 
Knight " of Scott's Marmion, made on the eve of his 
setting forth to die on the field of Flodden.* Early in 
the seventeenth century it was acquired by Edward 
Wilson of Low Levens, from whom it descended to 
his kinsman Edward Wilson of Dallam Tower, known 
as " Little Edward," who died at the age of eighty-nine 
in 1707. This Little Edward had a son known as 
" Long Edward " or Edward of Park House. At Park 
House he was born, and there he lived until the death 
of his father, t There is a stone let into the wall over 



the front door inscribed 
indicates the period of his 
some repairs or improve- 



E.W. 

1676 



This no doubt 
carrying out 
ments with a 



view to his going into possession on his marriage, which 
took place the following year with Catherine, daughter 
of Sir Daniel Fleming of Rydal. The death of his father 
in 1707 of course led to his removing to Dallam Tower, 
and Park House, thus vacated, became available for 

* Whitaker sets out the will in the History of Richmondshire. 
The Park is shown by an enclosure on the maps of Lancashire, 
Yorkshire, and Westmorland in Saxton's Atlas of England and 
Wales, pubhshed 1579 (see Frontispiece). 

t The history of the Wilson family (and incidentally of Park 
House) is given in the Rev. Wm. Hutton's Beetham Repository, a 
MS. edited for the Tract Series of the Cumberland and Westmor- 
land Antiquarian Society, by J. R. Ford (1906). Sec also the 
Cumberland and Westmorland Visitation of 1GO4 (cd. Jos. Foster) 
and Westmorland Church Notes, by E. Bellasis (1888-9). Low 
Levens is in Hcvcrsham, and Dallam Tower in the adjoining parish 
of Beetham. 



86 William Hardy of Park House 

letting to William Hardy. That the period of the latter's 
residence continued from his marriage at least down 
to March, 171 9, appears from the register of his 
children's baptisms at Tunstal. In 1719 the death 
took place of " Long " Edward Wilson, whose son 
and heir, Daniel, rebuilt Dallam Tower between 
1720 and 1723. During the rebuilding Daniel 
Wilson no doubt required Park House for his own 
occupation. 

Enough of the house is left to give a very good idea 
of what it originally was, and probably remained, till 
William Hardy's day. The plan is of the late Tudor 
or early Jacobean type of small manor-house, which 
differed from that of the medieval hall and the 
ordinary farm-house of later times, which we have 
already described, mainly in the absence of the screens 
or mell-doors, so that the entrance led directly into 
the hall. Park House was probably built at the time 
of the property being acquired by the Wilsons at the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, the epoch of 
the union of the two Crowns which was to make a 
fortified house on the Border a thing of the past. Mr, 
Conder's house at Terry Bank, built, as already 
mentioned, at the same period, is of the same type, 
and it occurs in a somewhat more elegant shape in 
Newby Hall in Morland parish, which Dr. Taylor 
also ascribes to the early part of the seventeenth 
century.* The subjoined plan of the ground floor of 
Park House will simplify our description, but being 
drawn from my own somewhat imperfect measure- 

* Old Manorial Halls of Cimiberland and Westmorland, p. 103 ; 
and ee Newby Hall, by R. M. Rigg, in C. and W. Ant. Soc. 
Trans, XII (N.S.), p. 121. 



Plan of Park House 87 

ments, it must not be taken as more than a sketch of 
approximate accuracy. 

A. Probable position of porch. The walUng shown 
by shading seems to have been added to form the 
present doorway and a recess for cloaks. 

B B B. Passage formed out of the hall and witli- 
drawing-room by modern partitions. 

C. Remaining part of hall now used as a parlour. 
The original south windows have been partly blocked, 
as shown by shading, and three lights have been 
opened between them. The north window was origin- 
ally further west. 

abed. Hearth-space in hall and kitchen, originally 
open, but now enclosed and fitted with modern grates. 
The chimney over this space is carried up through 
the floor above. 

E. Remaining part of withdrawing-room or dining- 
room, now used as a store-room. 

F. Staircase, now partitioned off from adjoining 
part and from west wing. The ground floor and 
north upper room of this are let off in separate 
occupation. 

G. Present entrance to west wing and part adjoining 
staircase. 

H. Modern stairs to upper north room. 

K K. Tower. 

L. Garden, 

M. Modern kitchen, 

N. Parlour, originally kitchen. The arch of the 
fire-place remains open, but the rest is enclosed and 
fitted with a modern grate. 

O. Passage formed by partition out of kitchen, with 
modern stairs partitioned off from the hall. The 



88 William Hardy of Park House 

entrance to the modern kitchen probably takes the 
place of an original window. 

P. Cupboard. 

Q. Part of dairy, which was perhaps part of the 
original kitchen. It has been enlarged by removing 
the wall shown by broken lines and partitioning off 
part of the east wing. There was probably also a 
window on the south side of this room. 

The east wing has been altered so as to communicate 
with the modern outbuildings with which it is sur- 
rounded on all sides except facing the front garden. 
It is now entered only through these outbuildings 
from the farm-yard. This part of the building is only 
sketched in outhne on the plan, but it can be seen 
from the upper part of the main walls that the two 
wings were originally symmetrical. 

The house is a long, low, stone building in two stories 
with a moderately pitched roof of ordinary slates. 
It was probably originally covered with stone slates, 
and the chimney-stack over the huge double hearth 
was doubtless much larger than the present one. 
With the important exceptions of the general plan 
and the windows it is now devoid of all characteristic 
architectural features. It would be no extravagant 
conjecture to suppose that there were originally at 
least stone copings on the gables, terminated by 
kneelers and simple ball-shaped finials. The porch, 
which may or may not have been of two stories, was 
probably finished in the same style. The windows in 
the north front of the upper story would, of course, be 
placed symmetrically over the lower ones. This is 
no longer the case, except on the east side of the main 
block and in the west wing. The north front, now 



Park House as it is 89 

much disfigured by alterations and additions, was 
about 100 feet long, the central block being about 66, 
and the wings about 17 feet each. The windows 
have stone mullions and dripstones, some being 
divided into three and some into four lights, square- 
headed and without transoms. The chamfering of 
the mullions of several of the upper windows is hollow 
in the early style ; in the others it is plain. The latter 
have probably been substituted much later. The 
alterations in these windows, partly in the number of 
lights and partly in position, especially on the upper 
floor, have greatly disfigured the front. The wings end 
in gables to the north, and have no windows on that 
side. Between them is a garden enclosed by a low 
wall. It is surmounted by modern iron paling, but is 
no doubt on the site of an old one. 

The gable of the west wing is surmounted by a 
chimney-stack and covered with ivy, and forms with 
the gabled end of the main building, also ivy-clad, a 
comparatively picturesque feature. The upper floor 
has a mullioned window under the main gable matching 
that below. 

The " tower," to use the name the occupiers gave 
it not thirty years ago, now consists of two stories, 
the upper one being covered by an open gable roof. 
The ground floor, or rather basement, of which the 
walls are three feet thick, is lighted only by small 
arched openings about a foot high. The upper floor 
has a small window close under the eave to the west, 
and a large mullioned window under the gable to the 
south. The level of this floor is several feet lower than 
that of the main building. 

Without wishing to dogmatise on a subject of which 



90 William Hardy of Park Ho2ise 

I know so little, I venture to express an opinion, based 
on many similar cases described by Dr. Taylor, that 
this building is the remains of a small specimen of the 
strongholds called peles, which were evenly distributed 
over Cumberland and Westmorland in the times when 
the Border country was the scene of constant warfare. 
The oldest now existing are of the fourteenth century, 
and they formed the nucleus of numerous manor-houses 
built down to the late Tudor times. The typical pele 
tower consisted of a vaulted basement, a solar or 
lord's apartment on the first floor, and a sleeping- 
chamber under the roof, which was surrounded with 
a crenellated parapet.* In the case of Park House this 
tower may have been doubly useful when the sur- 
rounding land was in fact a park, that is a hunting- 
ground, but in the planning of the dwelling-house it 
appears rather to be treated as an excrescence than 
a nucleus. As will be seen from the plan, however, 
it was connected with the house by the small inter- 
mediate building which contains the staircase. At 
the top of the first flight was apparently a doorway, 
now blocked up, leading into the first floor of the tower ; 
the second flight continues to the upper floor of the 
dwelling-house. 

The L shape thus produced doubtless also facilitated 
the formation of an enclosed garden or courtyard on 
the south side of the main building. There may pos- 
sibly have been in the original plan a projection at the 
east end to match the tower. 

The interior of the house is greatly disguised. The 

* Old Manorial Halls, p. 41 . A well-known Lancashire example on 
a large scale is Berwick Hall ; see Frontispiece, and Garner and 
Stratton, Tudor Domestic Architecture in England, Vol. II, p. 151. 



Interior of Park House 91 

hall has been much reduced in size by the partitions 
which make a passage on two sides, by the walling up 
of the hearth, and perhaps also by the cutting off of the 
space, now occupied by the stairs, reached from a 
passage which has been partitioned out of the kitchen. 
Five lights have been blocked out of the original 
v^indows in the south wall of the hall, and three 
fresh ones have been opened in the space between 
them. 

The wall dividing the kitchen into two with a 
corresponding encroachment on the other side into 
the wing may be of old standing, though not original. 
The other subdivisions of the wings seem less doubtful. 
It seems at least possible that the original doorways 
into the kitchen and drawing-room were on the south 
side, and that the present entrances are modern. The 
original line of division between the hall and kitchen 
seems doubtful, and the question of the original back 
entrances, if any, is also left by the numerous modern 
alterations somewhat diiiftcult of solution. 

The old staircase has some nicely carved spiral oak 
balusters, and on the first floor, forming the division 
between the staircase and the adjoining bedroom, is 
some old oak panelling. These are the only traces 
of internal decoration which it is possible to attribute 
to the period of the house or even to the eighteenth 
century. 

Finally we must not forget the Park House pew 
which, teste the vicar, once occupied a position at the 
head of the nave of Tunstal Church, second only in 
dignity to the chapel in the chancel aisle belonging 
to Thurland Castle. It may still be seen in an old 
engraving of the interior of the church preserved in 



92 William Hardy of Park House 

the vestry. It is a journey of some two miles and a 
half to the parish church from Cowan Bridge, shortened 
though it may be by a footpath across the fields 
which Charlotte Bronte and her sisters found such a 
sore trial on days of rain and mud. Though the Park 
House pew is no more, the room over the church porch 
in which these poor schoolgirls ate their Sunday 
luncheon still exists. It is not surprising that the pew 
should have gone out of use, since the modern church 
of Leek is but a stone's-throw from the Park House 
boundary. 

One is inchned to dwell upon Park House and its 
history because it is the oldest visible object which we 
can associate distinctly with any of our ancestors of 
the north-country period. In the churchyard at 
Kirkby Lonsdale not a tombstone remains bearing their 
name. Beyond the pack-horse bridge already men- 
tioned there are no buildings at Beckfoot which one 
can regard as older than about the middle of the 
eighteenth century. The dwelling there, which prob- 
ably dated at least from Elizabethan times, and had 
never pretended to be more than the abode of a 
statesman, must have been far less commodious than 
Park House, which may well have given the new tenant 
a sense on his marriage of having made a move, if not 
in the social scale, at least in the scale of civilisation. 
He was no longer a statesman cultivating a few 
" paternal acres," but he was a tenant-farmer of an 
estate of which the acreage seems to have run into 
many hundreds. Yet it is probable that life at Park 
House was primitive enough, and not much in advance 
of what is said to have been common in the dales even 
at the end of the eighteenth century. For WiUiam 



From Statesman to Tenant -Farmer 93 

Hardy was of thorough Westmorland breed, though 
a mile or so outside his native borders. In no other 
county has progress — or rather, should we say, change ? 
— been so slow and, perhaps we should add, so solid.* 
The stanzas of Pope, in which the above oft-quoted 
phrase occurs, are worth repeating here, so accurately 
do they seem to be modelled on the mode of life from 
which at this epoch our ancestry began to depart : 

" Happy the man whose wish and care 
A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 
On his own ground. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 
Whose flocks supply him with attire. 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter fire." 

What became of William Hardy immediately after 
leaving Park House is not perfectly clear. The bap- 
tism of his son Joseph, born in 1722 or 1723, which 
would in the ordinary course have thrown some hght 
on the point, was postponed till ten years later. In 
all probability he returned to his old home. The next 
record we have of him is the baptism at Kirkby 
Lonsdale of apparently his youngest son : " George, 
son of William Hardy of Barbon, yeoman." This 
took place on March 16, 1724-5, and, being less than 
six months after the death of Wilham's mother, 
suggests that it was on that event that he returned 

* Manners and Customs of Westmorland by a Literary Antiquarian 
[John Gough], reprinted in 1847 from the Kendal Chronicle of 1812 ; 
Report of Andrew Pringle, 1797 (in Bailey and Culley, Agriculture 
in Northumberland, etc.). 



94 William Hardy of Park House 

to Barbon, or that her age and infirmities had made 
it necessary that he should reheve her of all responsi- 
biHty in the carrying on of the farm on the family 
estate. The absence of a record of her personal property 
in the Archdeaconry Court is in favour of the latter 
supposition. 

The description of " yeoman " is significative of the 
change of status which had ensued in Barbon on the 
enfranchisement of the holdings of the customary 
tenants by the deed of January 17, 1718, which has 
already been referred to.* This deed is of interest 
as setting out the names of all the customary tenants 
at that date with quit rents indicating the relative 
values of their holdings. Our ancestor William is the 
only Hardy in the list, and judging from a glance 
through the parish and archdeaconry records it seems 
that he had outstayed all his cousins in Kirkby Lons- 
dale. The last traces of them which I have noticed 
indicate an emigration of some of them about the year 
1700 into Whittington and Wraton, both just over 
the Lancashire border. 

The effect of the enfranchisement on the remaining 
" Border-tenants " was to turn them into ordinary 
freeholders, and to put an end to all the rights of the 
lord of the manor in their property, except certain 
small fixed rents-charge, varying from 2d. to 
£1 I2S. lod. The scheme of the enfranchisement was 
the payment of £1700 down and of these perpetual 
rents-charge or quit rents amounting annually in all to 
£15 4s. 2d., both sums being apportioned amongst 
the various " tenements " according to their actual 
value. The freehold was conveyed to six out of the 

* p. 13 ; and see Appendix III. 



The Barbon Enfranchise77ient 95 

thirty-eight tenants scheduled to the deed, and the 
£1700 was expressed to be paid by these six trustees 
to Mr. Shuttleworth. No doubt most of the tenants 
contributed their share of the money then and there, 
but it was provided that in case any had not done 
so the trustees, as advancing the money for them, 
should stand entitled to legal interest until due 
payment. 

William Hardy appears in the deed as one of the 
trustees, and this may be taken as an indication of his 
being looked up to amongst his neighbours. It may 
also be noted that he appears in a second schedule, 
which contains a list of eight tenants of the manor 
who already held other land as freehold subject to 
various small " free rents " or quit rents, which it 
was provided should still be paid as before. The other 
trustees are Thomas Garnett, Robert Place, Robert 
Holme, Thomas Richardson, and James Harrison, 
the last-named being the present vicar of Barbon's 
ancestor. He, as well as Holme and Richardson, also 
appears in the schedule of freeholders, the others 
being Joseph Gibson (doubtless of Whelprigg), Thomas 
Dent, Anthony Reamy, and Elizabeth Glover. Joseph 
Gibson is the only one in the freeholders' list who does 
not also appear as a customary tenant. 

The average amount of quit rent charged on the 
various tenements is 8s., and the average capital 
payment approximately £^^. William Hardy's quit 
rent being 6s. 7d. shows his share of the redemption 
money to have been £36 4s. 

The next record we have of him is the baptism of 
his son Joseph at Kirkby Lonsdale on February 11, 
1732-3, in which he is still described as "of Barbon, 



96 William Hardy of Park House 

yeoman." Soon after this, though we do not know his 
place of abode for the next thirty years or thereabouts, 
there is reason to suppose that he finally parted with 
his ancestral home and again moved eastward. Let 
into the wall of a barn at the upper and, as I should 
judge, the older of the two farms at High Beckfoot is 
a stone tablet bearing this inscription : 

H 
T E 

1735 

This, according to the usage common in this part of 
the country, is to be interpreted somewhat in the 
manner of a shield, in which the husband's coat of 
arms impales the wife's. H stands for the surname, 
T for the christian name of the husband, E for that of 
the wife. I have little doubt that the mark is that of 
Thomas Holme and Elizabeth his wife (born Huck), 
who were married at Kirkby Lonsdale on September 
2, 1732. On the plans of Mr. Harrison's property 
sold in 1828, already quoted, the names of Holme and 
Huck both appear as adjoining owners. At High 
Beckfoot Mrs. Alice Holme and William Huck appear 
to own the land within a few hundred yards of the 
aforesaid barn and farm-house, and " Mr. T. Holme's 
devisees " are a little nearer the village. At Low 
Beckfoot William Huck appears again, and the 
property of J. Holme extends from the Lune up to and 
beyond the lane which joins the two hamlets. It 
seems, therefore, a very likely theory that a sale by 
William Hardy of his Beckfoot property took place 
in, or shortly after, the year 1733 to the newly married 
Thomas Holme, and that the latter, after setthng 



He Sends a So?i to College 97 

down there, added the barn and perhaps made other 
improvements in 1735. From the enfranchisement 
deed of 1718 it appears that next to the Garnetts, 
who together held nearly a fourth in value of all the 
customary property in Barbon, the four Holmes, 
including Thomas, were the largest owners in one 
family ; and it seems rather in accordance with the 
ordinary course of such things at that period that they 
should add to their possessions, and that the smaller 
owners should tend to disappear. 

The year 1733 also corresponds with an important 
event in the yeoman's family, which may have had 
something to do with his decision to realise his land 
and perhaps improve or economise his resources. 
This was the sending of his eldest son to Cambridge, 
where he was admitted at Christ's College on June 16. 
It was also perhaps the formalities attending this 
event that led to his son Joseph's christening, though 
at the age of ten. Owing to some unexplained cause 
it had apparently not taken place at the usual time, 
and the omission had probably been forgotten till the 
present occasion arose for looking into the parish 
register in proof of birth. The second and third 
sons, now aged seventeen and sixteen, would be old 
enough at this time to be apprenticed to the hardware 
business in which we find they were trading some eight 
or ten years later, so that their father may well have 
been just now in a convenient position for putting his 
establishment on a fresh footing. 

However this may be, there is practically no doubt 
that at the tirrie he made his will he was no longer a 
landed proprietor. In this document, which bears date 
December 8, 1762, he describes himself as " of Ingleton 

H 



98 William Hardy of Park House 

in the County of York, husbandman." Whereas the 
entrance to Park House at Cowan Bridge is about two 
miles from Kirkby Lonsdale, Ingleton is another five 
on the same road, which runs from Kirkby to Settle 
and so on to Leeds. Close to Ingleton it passes through 
the parish of Thornton in Lonsdale, where, as already 
mentioned, may be traced some early record of the 
family of William Hardy's wife, the Flasbys. 

Ingleton is a great contrast to Kirkby Lonsdale, 
which may boast, according to Ruskin,* of a churchyard 
affording " one of the loveliest scenes in England — and 
therefore in the world. Whatever moorland hill and 
sweet river and English foliage can be at their best 
is gathered here." The ancient church, the visible 
outcome of twenty or thirty generations of human 
piety, stands within a stone's-throw of the old market 
cross, the bygone and now almost lifeless centre of the 
little town, close to the steep bank where of all human 
sounds you hear only the falling of the mill-stream, as 
it once was, driven into its channel by a dam now 
abandoned to decay. The outlook combines in a 
harmonious gradation what is most naked and wild 
with what is most soft and cultivated in Nature, from 
the open fells of Barbon and Casterton to the woods, 
the lawns and meadows of Underley. Mingled with it 
all is the scent of the flower-gardens adjoining the 
footpath along the brow, and a delicious sense of rest 
and seclusion. 

But there is little seclusion about Ingleton unless it 
be in a " pot-hole " or cavern. The place is a well- 

* FoYS Clavigera. Letter 52. A trifle of exaggeration in his praise 
of the scenery must, I fear, be put down to pique from the design 
of a cast-iron ornament on a seat whence the view is observable. 



His Will 99 

known, or at least well-advertised resort of the holiday- 
makers of Lancashire and Yorkshire, who delight in 
cheap trips and picnic rambles amongst the " natural 
curiosities " of the neighbourhood, but it lies on such 
a splendid stretch of open limestone moorland that 
one may readily credit its claims as a healthy habitation 
— at least for those who stay there long enough. It is 
not surprising that both William Hardy and his wife 
should there have outlived the fiftieth anniversary of 
their wedding-day — he by two and she by seven years. 
They were buried at Ingleton, he on February 7, 1763, 
and she on February i, 1768. 

By his will* he gives all his property to his wife, 
directing, nevertheless, that at her death his children 
shall have the following legacies : Edward ^^5, Thomas 
£135, John £20, Joseph £20, William £25, and Elizabeth 
Gumming £40. The reasons for the variation in the 
amounts bequeathed must be left to the reader's 
conjectures. The testator's personal effects were 
valued as follows : " Purse and apparel ;^io ; money 
at interest £300 ; goods above stairs £10 ; goods below 
stairs £15 los. ; total ;^335 los." As no farming 
effects are mentioned it seems the description of 
" husbandman " which he assumes in his will refers 
rather to his status than his occupation, and perhaps 
intimates some lowly pride in being the last of his 
line to follow the calling of his ancestors. 

§ 2. John Hardy of Kirkburton and his descendants 

(1688-1871) 
The younger brothers of William Hardy of Park 

♦ Proved by his widow in ' the Lancaster Consistory Court, 
May 30, 1763. 



I oo Ch ildren of Edwa rd Ha rdy 

House both migrated to Yorkshire in early hfe. They 
were both no doubt educated at the old grammar school 
at Kirkby Lonsdale, but the records of the time have 
been lost. It does not appear that either of them 
went to the University, and we may therefore attribute 
their clerical preferment in the first instance to the 
Rev. John Briggs, who was Vicar of Kirkby Lonsdale 
from 1676 to 1737, and whose burial is there recorded 
at the age of ninety-one. Almost contemporary with 
him was the Rev. Joseph Briggs, vicar from 1662 to 
1727 of Kirkburton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
where he was buried at the age of eighty-five.* Re- 
searches at Wakefield, the birthplace of Joseph, 
contradict the supposition that John was his brother, 
but I think it may safely be assumed that they were 
cousins,! and it was due to this connection that John 
Hardy was in 1714 % appointed master of the grammar 
school which had just been established at Kirkburton 

* H. J. Morehouse, Hist. Kirkburton (1861), p. 68. 

f It is not unlikely that they were both grandsons or grand- 
nephews of Richard Briggs, a native of Halifax, who died in 1636, 
having been since about 1585 sub-master or headmaster of Norwich 
School (A. W. Jessop in Notes and Queries, 5th S., Vol. VII, p. 507). 
No doubt Joseph, as stated in Blomefield's Hist. Norfolk (8vo ed., Vol. 
IV, p. 221), was related to Augustin Briggs of Norwich, but the pedi- 
gree tracing them back to Salle in Norfolk is, according to Dr. 
Jessop, quite untrustworthy. In the Kirkby Lonsdale registers 
there appear two or three branches of a family of Briggs mainly 
settled at Lupton, and these were possibly related to the vicar, 
but the earliest entry is in 1664, when the vicar was aged about 
eighteen. If, therefore, he had any family connection wuth Kirkby 
Lonsdale, the most we can suppose is that his father migrated 
thither in middle life ; and this is quite consistent with the supposed 
West Riding origin of the whole family. The vicar, we may note, 
does not appear to have had any children. His wife, aged eighty- 
five, predeceased him by less than six months. 

t H. J. Morehouse, Hist, of Kirkburton (1861), p. 68. 



John Hardy, Schoolmaster loi 

by the inhabitants.* It was a " grammar school " 
of a most elementary kind. Endowments amounting 
to about £500 were acquired in 1721 and 1722 to 
teach twenty or thirty poor children reading gratis, 
and writing and arithmetic " at half-charges," besides 
something for their clothes, f At Kirkburton John 
Hardy married in February, 1717, Mary, daughter of 
Thomas Mokeson of Yew Tree, a homestead in that 
parish, where it is said the family had resided as 
yeomen for three hundred years. Of John Mokeson, 
the last of Yew Tree, and Olive his wife, there is, as 
Dr. Morehouse calls it, this " singular record," that 
they had thirty children, of whom four reached 
adult age. 

From the record of his marriage it appears that the 
schoolmaster was then also curate. The vicar was 
now in his seventy-ninth year, and probably from this 
time till his death ten years later, though he resided 
in the parish, he left the curate to perform the best 
part of his duties. Of his successor, however, the 
Rev. Robert D'Oyley, m.a., who was also Vicar of 
Windsor, it is said % that during the whole period of 
his connection with Kirkburton, which was nearly 
forty years, he only paid three visits to it. Conse- 

♦ A tablet in the school-building, presumably placed there in 
1736, says it w£is built in 1714, but there is a declaration by Jos. 
Briggs, the vicar, dated April 28, 1709, referring to a school-house 
having been " erected in the year last past " (F. A. Collins, Parish 
Registers of Kirkburton, Vol. II, p. 9). It is still probable that the 
school was not actually set going till the appointment of John 
Hardy in 1714. 

t Geo. Lawton, Collectio rer. Ecclesiastic. Ebor. (1842), p. 141 ; 
Wm. White, Hist. West Riding (1838), Vol. II. 

X Morehouse, p. 68. 



I02 John Hardy of Kirkburton 

quently John Hardy became curate-in-charge, and 
remained in that position till incapacitated by 
age.* 

The neglect of the vicar, says Dr. Morehouse, to 
appear more frequent amongst his parishioners gave 
them great cause of complaint, and the reasonableness 
of that discontent appears to have been felt by Mr. 
Hardy, as is implied in the following facetious reply 
of the vicar to his curate dated June 15, 1736 : 

" Methinks Yorkshire nettles are very forward this 
year and sting mightily, and surely one or more of 
them had not lightly touched you when you wrote 
your last, for I think I never saw so many marks and 
signs of a pet as I saw in yours. . . . The people 
grumble and murmur and upbraid you with my 
absence. Silly people for so doing. How can you 
help it ? . . . Well, to set things right I'll certainly, 
God willing, be with you next summer — thh I can't 
possibly, let matters require never so much. ... I 
believe you never once thought how travelling is 
disagreeable to the Old Fellow — how hard a matter 
to get a supply [substitute] for Windsor. These are 
things. Yesterday the B[ishop] of Sarum was here 
and told me that A[rch] B[ishop] of Y[ork] could not 
visit, neither would he be in your country. So, News- 
paper, what art thou ? . . . 

" Yours in good humour, 

" D'Oyley." 

That this letter does not necessarily cast an un- 
favourable reflection on the energies of the curate, 

* He signed as curate a terrier of the vicarage property as late as 
May 25, 1748 (Collins, Kirkb. Par. Reg., Vol. II, p. 13). 



Curate in Charge 103 

who had also his duties as schoolmaster to perform, 
will be realised when it is stated that the parish 
(exclusive of the graveship of Holme, where there 
was a chapel of ease) then extended over an area of 
some ten thousand acres, which have since been sub- 
divided between five churches, and are comprised in 
a congeries of somewhat grimy suburbs lying on the 
south-east side of Huddersfield. It was then of course 
mainly rural ; and consisted of some half-dozen 
scattered hamlets with intervening country somewhat 
remarkable for its steep valleys or ravines, which must 
in those days of very imperfect roads have been con- 
siderable obstacles to the communications between 
the acting parson and his flock. 

Kirkburton, however, was by no means an out-of- 
the-way place, and must have been in many ways — 
and, not the least important, in the character of its 
inhabitants — a great contrast to Barbon. It lies with 
its numerous villages within an area devoted to the 
wool trade, and the village of Kirkburton itself lay on 
the coach road running from Sheffield through Barns- 
ley, Skipton, and Settle to Lancaster.* 

If we may assume that the Rev. John Hardy in 
his ministrations followed the ideals of the vicar with 
whom for ten years he was first associated as curate, 
we may conclude that he performed his parson's 
functions in no indifferent manner. The Rev. Joseph 
Briggs was the author of two little works still extantf 
which both reflect creditably on his sincerity as the 
shepherd of his flock. In the preface to the former, 
The Church Catechism Explained, pubhshed in 1696 

* Ogilby's Roads, editions of 1699 and 1719. 

+ Copies are in the library of the British Museum. 



I04 John Hardy of Kirkburton 

and again in 1722, he says : " I account it to myself 
a great blessing that being by a sickly constitution of 
body forced from the breasts of my mother, that 
famous school of the prophets, the University of 
Cambridge, a very good providence cast me under the 
wings and guidance of an aged divine — grave, learned, 
and pious ; a truly loyal subject to, and sufferer for, 
his Sovereign (1648),* a most orthodox son of the 
Church," whose admonition led his pupil to the study 
of the Catechism. In order to promote this study 
amongst the youth of Kirkburton, the vicar tran- 
scribed — " a great drudgery " — the whole of the 
questions and answers, and then found it necessary 
to have them printed. This print proving faulty, he 
had a reprint, to which he added the " Catechist's 
Enlargement," thus originating the present volume. 

Mr. Briggs's other work, published in 1704, is 
called Catholick Unity and Church Communion, or 
the Christian's Duty to communicate constantly with 
the Church of England ; with a just reproof of several 
novel and schismatical notions and -practices [occasional 
conformity] . . . suited to the well-meaning country- 
man's capacity. The prefaces to both these little books 
and the dedicatory letters to the Archbishop of York 
show their author to have been a man honestly devoted 
to what he conceived to be the spiritual welfare of his 
parishioners, a very different person from the typical 
eighteenth-century pluralist, of whom we shall have 
something to say in the sequel. Notwithstanding 

* King Charles was beheaded in January, 1648-9. The " loyal 
sufferer " was Briggs's father-in-law, Henry Robinson, under whom 
he was curate at Swillington, and from whom he seems to have in- 
herited his somewhat rigid Church principles (Morehouse, Hist. 
Kirkburton, p. 66). 



His Family 105 

Joseph Briggs's " weakly constitution " in his early 
days he lived to the age of eighty-five. 

It may seem rather remarkable that as curate and 
village schoolmaster of Kirkburton, where the gross 
income of the benefice is to-day put at little more 
than £300 a year, the Rev. John Hardy should have 
so far taken root in the soil as to found, so to speak, 
a local family which retained their hereditary estate 
in the parish for more than a hundred years after his 
death. His early experiences on his father's home- 
stead at Beckfoot may have perhaps enabled him to 
deal shrewdly in land or even in sheep or wool. He 
died September 20, 1756, and lies buried with his wife 
in the nave of the parish church. By his will he gave 
a house and land in one or other of the Kirkburton or 
neighbouring townships to each of his four children, 
all of whose baptisms are duly recorded in the parish 
register. In the will they appear as Rebecca Bingley, 
widow ; Thomas ; William ; and Betty, who is 
afterwards described as the wife of Benjamin North of 
Almondbury, merchant. " Widow Bingley " was buried 
at Kirkburton, December 20, 1811, aged ninety-three, 
and thus holds the record in our annals for longevity. 

William was educated at the ancient grammar school 
in the adjoining parish of Almondbury, as appears 
from his admission at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
March 31, 1741. He took his B.A. in 1745, and is 
mentioned in his father's will as a clergyman ; but 
we are not able to trace him or his descendants further, 
and shall find good reason in the sequel to suppose he 
died without issue. 

To Thomas was left the property called Birksgate 
(or Birks-yate) in the township of Thurstonland, which 



io6 John Hai'-dy of Kirkbu7^foii 

became the residence of the head of the family. Thomas 
was a tanner, and had a family of ten children, all 
sons, of whom seven, Thomas, John, Edward, Joseph, 
Charles Marius, Julius, and Benjamin, survived him. 
He died March 19, 1777, and lies buried with his wife 
in Kirkburton churchyard. By his will he gave to 
his sons Thomas and Edward the Birksgate property, 
and to John and Charles an estate at Upper Cumber- 
worth, which he probably inherited from his brother 
William ; and it may be taken as some slight indica- 
tion of the values of these properties that he charged 
on the Birksgate property in favour of his three other 
sons three legacies of ;£30o apiece. A bequest to his 
wife of " one bed and beding for the same " reads only 
less oddly than Mrs. William Shakespeare's " second- 
best bed " ; but as she is appointed a trustee of the 
will, it can scarcely indicate ill-feeling, but rather that 
she was already well provided for, for he gives the 
residue of his personal estate to Thomas and Edward, 
the devisees of Birksgate. In fact, it seems probable 
from what follows that the wife was a lady of fortune. 
We have no clue to her origin. Oddly again, her 
husband does not mention even her christian name. 
She died March 6, 1795, aged sixty-nine, and is called 
on the family grave " Martha," though in the register 
of burials she is called " Mary." 

Thomas the tanner was succeeded by his eldest son, 
who is described in his own will as Thomas Hardy of 
Birksgate, gentleman. In the course of a long life (he died 
in 1836, aged eighty-seven or eighty-eight) he seems to 
have accumulated, in part probably by means of money 
left him by his mother, a considerable amount of 
property in the neighbourhood of Kirkburton, besides 



His Son and Grandson 107 

some at Manchester. His personal estate was sworn 
at " under £2000," which imphcs that it exceeded 
;^i5oo ; but this of course did not include his property 
in land, which, having no children of his own, he settled 
by will* elaborately on the descendants of his brothers. 
It seems from the will of his brother Edward, who was 
of Cumberworth in Silkston parish, that on the latter's 
death without issue in 1827, if not before, Thomas 
Hardy had acquired the half-share of Birksgate which 
Edward had taken under their father's will. It may 
be conjectured that both these brothers as well as 
their brother John, who was of Penistone, acquired 
some of their wealth by the possession of land which 
contained coal. 

It is worth noting that Edward Hardy of Cumber- 
worth by his will devises to a trustee all his right, 
title, and interest to and in a chapel at Shelley in 
Kirkburton parish, " for the use of the Methodist 
Conference late in connection with the Rev. John 
Wesley," built upon land purchased in 1783. That 
the grandson of a man who was brought into intimate 
and lifelong familiarity with one of the most crying 
abuses of the Church in the eighteenth century should 
have been a follower of Wesley is suggestive of the 
tradition in the family of a wholesome sense of right 
and duty. 

Under the settlement created by the will of Thomas 
Hardy of Birksgate, gentleman, the first in possession 
was Thomas Hardy, a doctor in practice at Walworth 
in Surrey, who had obtained his licence as an apothe- 
cary in 1824 and his diploma as a surgeon in 1825. 

* Proved both at York and in the Canterbury Prerogative Court 
in London. 



io8 John Hardy of Kirkburton 

He was the son of John Hardy of Penistone, and seems 
at the time of his succeeding to his uncle's estate to 
have been already in good circumstances. Walworth 
in 1836 was a suburb of respectable villas ; and a 
villa, using the term in its then less degraded sense, 
would pay, I imagine, not less than half a guinea a 
visit. The doctor's will disposes of a considerable 
amount of property in Walworth, Chelsea, and Syden- 
ham. Under the terms of the will of his uncle he was 
bound to reside at Birksgate, which he accordingly 
did till his death in 1848. He was an active county 
magistrate,* and is said to have been a Unitarian by 
religion, driving regularly behind a pair of cream- 
coloured horses to the chapel at Lidget in a remote part 
of the parish called Wooldale.f 

The chapel at Lidget has a history going back to the 
Restoration, when hundreds of ministers were ejected 
from their livings for refusing to submit to the Act 
of Uniformity. The Morehouses of that day and since 
had been its constant supporters, J and their descendant 
Dr. H. J. Morehouse, the historian of Kirkburton, has 
told me that Mr. Hardy of Birksgate was one of his 
intimate friends, and used often to speak to him of his 
Westmorland descent. 

He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, 
Edward Hardy of Shepley Hall, another residence in 
Kirkburton parish which had been purchased by 
Thomas Hardy the second in 1775. On Edward's 
death without issue the family property passed to his 

* Morehouse, Kirkbtirion, p. 104. 

t This was told me by Canon Hulbert, late Vicar of Almondbury, 
and by Mrs. Collins, wife of the Vicar of Kirkburton, on the authority 
of old parish clerks. 

X C. A. Hulbert, Hist. Almondbury, p. 375. 



Dr. Thomas Hardy, J P. 1 09 

brother Alfred, the next tenant for hfe, who, however, 
had settled in South Australia. By him and his son, 
who would then apparently be tenant-in-tail in re- 
mainder, the settled estates were about the year 1871 
disentailed and sold.* 

§ 3. Thomas Hardy of Mirfield (1683-1739) 

In order to preserve some continuity as due to the 
unity of place we have somewhat digressed from 
our usual plan of advancing generation by generation. 
We must now return to the children of Edward Hardy 
of Beckfoot. His second son Thomas in 1716, two 
years after the third son became a schoolmaster at 
Kirkburton, was presented by Sir John Armitage to 
the vicarage of Mirfield, which lies close to the south- 
west of Dewsbury, and consequently but a few miles 
north of Kirkburton. Sir John Armitage of Kirklees 
was the head of a family spread in innumerable 
branches through Kirkburton, Almondbury, and the 
adjoining district.! 

The benefice of Mirfield, a small parish compared 
with Kirkburton, was in 1707 only worth £18 a year, 
but in 1719 Sir John Armitage endowed it with £200, 
and Queen Anne's Bounty added the same amount, 
and in 1732 £200 more ; and in 1831 the annual value 
was put at £242. J Judging from these figures and 
the slight record we have of the career of his two sons, 
it might seem the vicar made the most of the income 
derived from his parish. He may perhaps have married 

* I had this information from Mrs. ColUns. 

t Parish Registers of Kirkburton, ed. by Mrs. F. A. ColUns, 
Vol. II, p. xlviii ; C. A. Hulbert, Annals of Almondbury, p. 236. 

X Markham's Parish Accounts, British Museum MSS. Add. 
"397 ; Wm. \Vhite's Hist, etc.. West Riding {1838). 



I lo Thomas Hardy of Mirfield 

a fortune, but on this subject we can furnish nothing 
but conjecture. He died at Mirfield, and was buried 
there on December 19, 1739. No record of his will 
or administration of his effects being found at York 
leads to the conclusion that he had no property to 
leave behind him. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE STATESMEN, THEIR SCHOOLS, AND THE CHURCH 

" Some men thought therefore that D. Medcalfe [Dr. Mcdcalfe, 
Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, about 1533] was parciall 
to Northrenmen, but sure I am of this, that Northrenmen were 
parciall in doing more good and giving more lands to the forder- 
ance of learning than any other contriemen in those dayes did." — 
Roger Ascham, 77/1? Scholemasier^ book ii. (Ed. Arber), p. 133. 

ALTHOUGH Chaucer in his immortal Prologue to 
l\. the Canterbury Tales has made his worthy Parson 
own brother to an equally worthy Ploughman, it may 
seem strange that some three centuries later the two 
younger sons of a yeoman-farmer such as Edward 
Hardy of Beckfoot, scarcely able to write his name, 
should have been competent to take up the position 
of ministers in the Church of England as by law 
established. And this would undoubtedly have been 
unusual in the case of yeoman-farmers in general. 
But amongst the Westmorland statesmen things were 
otherwise. The explanation is well set out in an 
assistant-commissioner's Memorandum on the West- 
morland Schools by D. C. Richmond, appended to 
Reports on Northern Schools issued under the Schools 
Inquiry Commission of 1867.* 

The number of endowed grammar schools in West- 
morland, we find, was unusually large — greater, in 

* p. goi. 
Ill 



1 1 2 The Statesmen, Their Schools, & the Church 

fact, than that of any other county except Lancashire 
and Yorkshire ; and this, though in population 
Westmorland was the smallest except Rutland and 
two counties in Wales. Counties of approximately 
the same population contained one or two schools, 
whereas in Westmorland there were forty. Fifty 
years ago, says the commissioner, thirty of these schools 
were still teaching Latin, whereas in 1867 the number 
had dwindled to half a dozen. Three only of these 
now attempted advanced Latin and Greek, viz. 
Appleby, Heversham, and Kirkby Lonsdale (Hever- 
sham, it may be noted in passing, was founded by 
Edward Wilson of Low Levens, who also founded the 
fortunes of the Wilsons of Dallam Tower), and only 
Appleby and Heversham had now pupils of an age to 
send to the university, though in the case of Kirkby 
Lonsdale this was a special point intended to be pro- 
vided for by the school charter.* 

Mr. Richmond's explanation of the large number 
of schools in Westmorland and their decay in modern 
times, i.e. since the so-called industrial revolution at 
the end of the eighteenth century, is what chiefly 
interests us. They are due, he states, " to the habits 
and characteristics of a class of men now declining in 
numbers and importance, but who were formerly a 
great power in this part of the country, viz. the small 
landowners or statesmen." These men, he says, 
clearly distinguished from the labouring classes, looked 
for something better than the ordinary village school 
could give, but they were not rich enough to send their 
sons to a boarding-school. They had very different 
ideas from those of farmers and tradespeople in the 

* D, C. Richmond's Report on Kirkby Lonsdale ^School , p. 365. 



Learned Simplicity 1 1 3 

south of England. They had no idea of their sons 
learning the manners of the superior classes, and their 
strong independence and self-sufficiency, their con- 
tempt for mere externals and pride of class, which 
admitted no desire to struggle out of it, led them to 
look at home for education. They would not object 
to meeting the lower classes in the village school, if 
there was a scholar who could teach them what they 
wanted ; otherwise they would walk long distances 
to a grammar school, or lodge in the neighbourhood 
^vith relations or friends. Latin and Greek were 
especially sought after. Homer was a favourite author, 
and the scholastic profession was held in high honour. 
Moreover, with the larger statesmen it was almost a 
matter of course for at least one younger son to go into 
the Church. 

The following quotation from Hodgson's West- 
morland as it was* written apparently about the 
beginning of the nineteenth century, will serve as an 
anticipatory comment on the biographies outlined in 
the preceding and the next generation of our pedigree : 
" Families that could afford it sent their sons to one 
of the universities, and the exhibitions of Queen's 
College, Oxford, and other colleges annually main- 
tained a number of youths whose frugal habits, 
industry, and abilities almost invariably led them to 
honourable distinction. But the greatest number 
completed their education in the head schools, and 
about their twentieth year became schoolmasters, in 
which employment they continued till they were at 
age to enter holy orders. This class of scholars was 
dispersed all over England, and mostly spent their 

* Lonsdale Magazine, Vol. Ill, p. 382. 
I 



1 1 4 The Statesmen, Their Schools, & the Church 

lives in stipendiary curacies or small livings. In this 
scholastic age the yeoman and the shepherd could 
enliven their employments or festivities with recita- 
tions from the beauties of Virgil, idyls of Theocritus, 
or wars of Troy. But when a shorter and easier way 
was opened to the introduction of youth into opulent 
prospects, this learned simplicity began to disappear. 
Teachers of writing and arithmetic, who had hitherto 
wandered from village to village, now became necessary 
appendages to the larger schools, and those of inferior 
note were soon almost exclusively employed in quali- 
fying youth for the counting-house or the Excise." 
The disappearance of the statesman and his replace- 
ment by small and poor tenant-farmers which ensued 
in the nineteenth century tended in the same direction. 
There was no longer the same demand for education ; 
the curate and schoolmaster became separate pro- 
fessions, and the standard of the latter was lowered.* 
The foundation of Kirkby Lonsdale school goes back 
to 1582. On April 16 in that year a body of feoffees, 
headed by Mr. Edward Middleton of Middleton 
Hall, received from Mr. Godsalve a sum of £100 towards 
its erection, f The scheme no doubt existed still 
earlier, and it is not unlikely that the money paid over 
by Godsalve consisted to some extent of gifts and 
legacies which had been accumulating for some years. 
Thus the will of John Stoctell (Stockdale) of Mansergh 
Hall houses, dated February 8, 1580-1, contains a 

* Richmond's Memorandum on Westmorland Schools. Never- 
theless, in 191 1 the Board of Education reported that next to 
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, Westmorland had the highest 
number in proportion to population of " efficient Secondary schools " 
in England and Wales. 

t Seventh Report of the Charity Commissioners (1822). 



Kirkhy Lonsdale School 1 1 5 

legacy of two marks {£1 6s. 8d,) " to the preferment 
of a free school at Kirkbye." The charter of incor- 
poration by letters patent of Queen Elizabeth bears 
date July 3, 1591. This prescribed that the master 
should be able to read and compose Greek and Latin 
verses, and read and interpret Greek grammar and 
authors, and should be born in Westmorland, York- 
shire, or Lancashire. Numerous additional gifts and 
legacies followed from time to time for the immediate 
benefit of the school, and exhibitions were also 
founded for poor scholars proceeding from the school 
to the universities. At Christ's College, Cambridge, 
three exhibitions were provided by Thomas Wilson 
(probably of Underley in Kirkby Lonsdale and of 
Heversham), dated August 9, 1626, and three more 
under the will of Thomas Otway, Bishop of Ossory in 
1692. At Queen's College, Oxford, seven exhibitions 
were provided in 1638 by Henry Wilson (probably also 
of Underley) out of certain tithes in Betham parish, 
from which we may perhaps conclude that the founder 
was of the same family as the owners of Dallam Tower 
and Park House. 

The Bishop of Ossory, there can be little doubt, was 
of kin to the Otways of Beckside Hall in Middleton, 
already mentioned. Though a Christ's man, he was 
not educated at Kirkby Lonsdale, but at Winchester, 
his father being Vicar of Alderbury in Wiltshire.* 
It may well be that Kirkby Lonsdale furnished the 
latter with the learning on the strength of which he 
took orders, and that this actuated his son in benefiting 
the school. His will also provides for exhibitions at 
Christ's for scholars from the school at Sedbergh, 

* Diet. National Biog. Errata. 



ii6 The Statesmen^ Their Schools, & the Church 

which is the Yorkshire parish immediately adjoining 
Middleton. As already mentioned, a branch of the 
Otways migrated from Middleton to Ingmire Hall in 
this parish before the period of the Civil War. It may 
be mentioned here that Thomas Otway the dramatist, 
the most famous of the name, was in all probability 
of the Middleton stock. His father was Humphrey 
Otway, Vicar of Wolbeding in Sussex, who, it appears, 
from his admission at Christ's College, May 25, 1627, 
though born at Brafhn in Hertfordshire, where his 
father was vicar, received the last part of his education 
at Sedbergh. 

And finally, let it not be forgotten that the most 
sterling of English geniuses who adorned the eighteenth 
century was of Westmorland breed. Richard Hogarth, 
who was a younger son of a Westmorland statesman, 
brought his learning from his native Bampton to 
London and set up as a schoolmaster in Bartholomew 
Close, where his son William was born on November 
10, 1697, His family can be traced in Westmorland 
as far back as the time of Henry VHI.* In the 
personal character of William Hogarth the statesman's 
sturdiness and self-sufficiency are extremely well 
marked. And it is worth mentioning here as a thing 
not generally known that there are at least two 
portraits by Hogarth apparently painted in Lonsdale. 
They represent Mrs. Margaret Mawdesley and another 
of the daughters of one of the Godsalves of 
Rigmaden in Mansergh township, and are amongst 
the family portraits of the Gibsons of Whelprigg. 
Both are of the familiar type represented in the 
National Gallery by Lavinia Fenton and Hogarth's 

* Austin Dobson, Hogarth, chap. ii. 



The Otivays and Hogarths 1 1 7 

sister, and in each case the hair and bodice are decorated 
with the pearl necklace which is almost equally familiar 
as a studio property in the artist's female portraits. It 
would be interesting if one could trace any further 
connection between Hogarth and the native county 
of his ancestors. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SIXTH GENERATION 

Division i. The children of William Hardy of 
Park House 

THE register at Tunstal contains six entries of 
baptisms of children of " William Hardy of 
Park House " with dates as follows : 

Elizabeth, August 20, 1711. 

Isabella, February 15, 1712-3. 

Edward, July 31, 1714. 

Thomas, January 15, 1715-6. 

John, January 9, 1716-7, and 

WilUam (" fourth son "), March 30, 1719. 

In their father's will is also mentioned Joseph (who, 
as will appear later, was born in the year ending 
August 5, 1723, though, as already stated, he was not 
baptised till February 11, 1733). 

George, who, as already mentioned, was baptised at 
Kirkby Lonsdale, March 16, 1725, is not mentioned 
in the will, and we may therefore presume he died in 
his father's lifetime without issue. His baptismal name 
may be taken as some intimation that his father was 
no partisan of the house of Stuart. The passing of 
a Jacobite army through Kendal on its way from 
Scotland to be defeated at Preston in 1715 must have 

u8 



Elizabeth ; Isabel/a ; William ; George 1 1 9 

been still well remembered in Westmorland and Lan- 
cashire. 

Of aU the above-named children Elizabeth seems 
to be the only one who remained in the north after her 
father's death. We find her mentioned as " Mrs. 
Gumming of Kirkby Lonsdale, widow," in the will of 
her cousin John Hardy, son of the Vicar of Mirfield, 
which bears the date October 21, 1776. We have no 
record of her marriage, but it probably took place at 
Kirkby Lonsdale. Her husband may have been the 
son of Edward Gumming of Holme House, Mansergh, 
in that parish, yeoman, whose will was proved in June, 
1729, in the Richmond Archdeaconry Court. The 
family had been in the neighbourhood for generations. 
In the registers of Thornton in Lonsdale the first 
legible entry of a baptism is that of James, son of 
Edmund Gumminge, on May 25, 1576.* 

Isabella, the next daughter, died unmarried, and 
was buried by her parents at Ingleton, December 6, 
1762, only two months before her father, and two days 
before he made his will. 

Of the other children Edward and Joseph settled as 
clergymen in Kent, and Thomas and John as citizens 
of London. Of William we have no further trace 
except the mention of his widow in the will of his 
brother Edward, dated May 20, 1796. From this we 
may conclude that he was then dead without issue, 
and from his not being named in the will of his cousin 
John just mentioned that he died before October 21, 
1776. 

Edward, as appears from the records of Ghrist's 
Gollege, Cambridge, where he is described as the son of 

* R. R. and M. Balderston, Ingleton Bygone and Present, p. 102. 



I20 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

" William Hardy, born at Park House in the County 
of Lancaster," was educated at the grammar school 
of Kirkby Lonsdale under " Mr. Noble," and admitted 
to the college in his eighteenth year as a sizar on June 
i6, 1733.* It does not appear, but it seems likely that 
he also had the benefit of one of the exhibitions of 
which, as mentioned above, Christ's College was 
possessed. 

No doubt Joseph Hardy also had his education at 
Kirkby Lonsdale school, but, as we shall see later, he 
did not go to Christ's direct from school, and this is 
probably the reason why the place of his education 
is not mentioned in the Admission Book. 

§ I. Thomas and John Hardy of Leadenhall Street 
and their children (1716-1804) 

In order to deal chronologically with the events 
recorded in the careers of the four brothers we will 
postpone our account of Edward, though the eldest, 
till the last. His brother John, who seems, as far as 
we can ascertain, to have been the pioneer in the 
move to the south, was admitted a freeman of the 
City of London, as appears from the records of the 
Musicians' Company, on February 26, 1745. He 
came on the livery of the company November 23, 
1752. He was then living " near St. Peter's Alley, 
Cornhill," and is described as a cutler. How or why 
he adopted this occupation we have no evidence. 
He was thirty when he obtained his freedom, and 

* " Edwardus Hardy, Gnlielmi Filius, natus apud Parkhouse in 
com. Lancast^'. Uteris instructus apud Kirkby Lonsdale sub Mag''°. 
Noble admissus est sizator sub Mag™. Trant anno act. 18." Until 
the discovery of this crucial record I had no clue whatever to any 
earher generation in the pedigree. 



John Hardy, Hardware man 121 

had doubtless entered the business as an apprentice — 
possibly in Shcflield or some other Yorkshire town 
— many years earlier. In that case the advancement 
of his business may well have been the inducement for 
his coming to London. We can scarcely suggest any 
other. The only friends of his family of whom we 
have any trace at this time in the City were two great- 
grandsons of the Rev. Joseph Briggs, the Vicar of 
Kirkburton, Hobart Briggs and John Briggs. In 1745 
the former was in the E.xcise Office, and the latter in 
the Post Office.* Although some ten years younger 
than John Hardy, it is not unlikely that they preceded 
him in their arrival in London, as they would naturally 
enter these offices direct from school. Their father was 
Rector of Holt in Norfolk, and they were perhaps 
educated at the grammar school there, of which the 
Fishmongers' Company were governors, and so they 
may have had connections in the City. 

From 1754 to 1765 John Hardy appears in the books 
of the Musicians' Company and various directories 
as a hardwareman at " the corner of Leadenhall 
Street," but in 1766 his address is " Birchin Lane."t 
The explanation of his removal is found in the disas- 
trous fire which happened on November 7, 1765. The 
Gentleman's Magazine for that month J contains an 
account of the fire illustrated by a plan, which gives 
the names and businesses of the occupiers of the 
numerous houses involved. " Hardy, hardwareman," 
appears at the corner of Leadenhall Street and Bishops- 
gate Street. Immediately at the back of this house 

* Blomefield, Hist. Norfolk, Vol. II (1745), p. 640. 
t Kent's London Directory, 
t P- 535- 



12 2 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

and facing Bishopsgate Street is " Rutland, barber," 
and in tkis shop early in the morning the fire suddenly 
started. For want of water and with the aid of a 
southerly wind it soon spread along both sides of 
Bishopsgate Street as far as Threadneedle Street. 
About seven o'clock the wind shifted, and the fire 
went no further towards the north. From the meeting- 
point, however, of Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate 
Street, Gracechurch Street, and Cornhill, where all 
four corners were blazing at once, it spread east and 
west, destroying some half-dozen houses on the north 
side of Cornhill, and in Leadenhall Street half a score 
on the north, besides two or three opposite. Altogether, 
it is said, forty-nine houses were destroyed and fifteen 
damaged. Several lives were lost, but mainly, if not 
entirely, as the result of faUing ruins.* 

In the following year a brand-new row of houses 
with shops was built on the north side of Leadenhall 
Street on the site of those burnt down, the frontage 
being set back slightly in a curve to widen the thorough- 
fare in correspondence with a similar arrangement in 
Cornhill. An elaborate engraving showing the elevation 
of the new buildings is given by Wilkinson in Londina 
Illusirata.'f From this it appears that the corner house 
now occupied not only its former site, but also that 
of the house adjoining, and had a frontage on Leaden- 
hall Street of about thirty-five feet, which was more 

* A good account of the fire gathered from contemporary news- 
papers and other sources of information is in Vol. I of the larger edition 
(in the Guildhall Library) of Robert Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata 
(1818-1825), opposite plate No. VIII. This is a plan of the fire 
identical with that in the Gentleman' s Magazine, except that it is on 
a larger scale. 

t Vol. II, Plate No. CXXXII, in the Guildhall Library Edition. 



Thomas Hardy, Hardivareman 123 

than half as much again as any of its neighbours. The 
" return " frontage on Bishopsgate Street was some- 
what longer. In fact, the site was identical with that 
occupied by the corner house at the present time, and 
bore the same number, 158, in Leadenhall Street.* 

The entrance from Leadenhall Street is through a 
shop-front consisting of no less than seventy-two panes 
of glass, without counting the subdivision into three 
caused by the arched heads inserted into the top row, 
an extra ornament further distinguishing the hardware 
shop from the others. Above are three floors, each 
with a row of four plain windows, and above these two 
attic windows partly hidden by the parapet. The 
shop door, not being in the middle, but decidedly 
nearer the east side of the house, suggests that there 
was a private entrance in Bishopsgate Street, and 
possibly an internal subdivision into two. It is 
therefore not surprising that in the next record where 
we can trace the corner house we find it in double 
occupation. In Bald\vin's London Guide for 1770 we 
find " John & T. Hardy, Hardwaremen, comer of 
Leadenhall Street and Bishopsgate Street " — an entry 
which is continued in various directories down to 1792. 

The supposition that the two brothers joined together 
on the rebuilding of the house after the lire fits in with 
Thomas Hardy's admission to the freedom of the 

* In Wilkinson's plate the houses are not numbered, but he 
gives the names of the occupiers as they were apparently in 1825. 
The numbers are given with the site of each house in Horwood's 
Map of London of 1799. From this it may be seen how the site of 
the three large houses over which the numbers 150 to 157 (inclusive) 
are now distributed was then divided between eight separate 
dwelUngs, including the Bull Inn and another house, formerly the 
Nag's Head, which were reached by passages and courtyards, and 
had no frontages on the street. 



124 Children of Wilham Hardy of Park House 

City on May 6, 1766. This is recorded in the books of 
the Carpenters' Company, of which he was enrolled as 
a liveryman on July 7, 1767, being described as of 
Leadenhall Street, hardwareman. 

On turning to the registers of St. Peter's-upon- 
Cornhill,* in which parish this end of Leadenhall Street 
is situated, we find as early as December 18, 1757, the 
baptism of Henry, son of Thomas Hardy ; which, if it 
relates to Thomas Hardy the hardwareman, is the 
earliest record we have of his connection with the City. 
In the same register is the baptism of " Thomas, son 
of John and Christian Hardy," February 20, 1770, 
and the burial of Christian Hardy in the south aisle of 
the church on March 18, 177 1. Of the son Thomas 
we have no further trace. The uncommon name of 
Christiana being bestowed, as we shall find later, on 
a niece and again on a grandniece of John Hardy the 
hardwareman leaves little doubt as to his being the 
husband of this Christian, and it may also be inferred 
that he was married to her as early as 1756, when the 
niece named after her was christened. The form of 
her own baptismal name, I think, indicates a northern 
origin. 

Both the brothers had other children, as we shall 
see later, besides those just referred to, but their 
baptisms do not appear at St. Peter's. Nevertheless, 
during the five-and-twenty years of their residence at 
their new house the hardwaremen continued in some 
degree their connection with the church. From the 
manuscript collections of Robert Wilkinsonf in the 

* Printed down to 1772 by the Harleian Society, 
t See the second of the quarto volumes, pp. 14-22. Wilkinson, 
the author or pubUsher of Londina Illustrata, was a resident in the 



5/. Peters on Comhill 125 

Guildhall Library it appears that in 1767 John Hardy 
was appointed a trustee of some of the parish property, 
and continued as such till September 13, 17(12, when 
it is recorded that he had left the parish. Thomas 
was overseer in 17S0-1 and churchwarden in 1782-3. 
Amongst the plates issued by Wilkinson in 1S25 in 
connection with the church is a plan, showing the 
pews and seats with certain occupants' names, " given 
in 1782 by Mr. Thomas Hardy, then the upper church- 
warden," to the sextonesses " for their discretion." 
In this plan a spacious compartment at the west end 
of the church is allotted as the " churchwarden's 
pew," but it is remarkable that none of the Hardy 
family are named as occupying seats in the capacity 
of inhabitants of the parish.* Owing to the small 
number of householders in the minute City parishes 
it may well be supposed that every parishioner who 
was fit for the various parochial offices was in his turn 
called on to serve, although he may not have habitually 
worshipped in the church. 

Thomas Hardy became a member of the court of the 
Carpenters' Company in 1791 and Middle Warden in 
1794. He was nominated for Upper Warden in 1795, 
but not elected. His brother John was Master of the 
Musicians' Company in 1775, in 1792 a trustee, and 

parish and trustee of the parish property as early as 1792. His five 
volumes of manuscript collections were intended for a history of the 
parish, which he never published, but were used for a history of the 
church, pubhshed after his death in 1S37. He published several 
plates illustrating the church and its monuments, most of which are 
collected in a volume in the Guildhall Library. The complete set 
of eighteen is catalogued in Wm. Upcott's Bibliography of English 
Topography, Vol. II, p. 709. 

* This plan is in the Collection of Prints relating to Comhill 
Ward in the Guildhall Library. 



126 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

in 1793 treasurer. After this there was a difficulty 
about his accounts, but an agreement was at last come 
to between the lawyers as to what was due, and, this 
being paid over in 1801, the treasurer resigned. 

Meanwhile it appears from the directories that in 
1792 the firm had moved to 127 Leadenhall Street, 
where they continued till 1801, and then disappeared. 
No. 127 is in the parish of St. Andrew, Undershaft. 
It appears from Horwood's map and from the in- 
formation I have picked up from the parish clerk, who 
remembered it as it was before it was pulled down to 
make room for the offices of the P. and O. Company, 
that it was a great contrast to No. 158 in point of size 
and position ; and coupling this with the facts above 
mentioned concerning the Musicians' and Carpenters' 
Companies, there seems ground for supposing that 
the removal of the two old men from their prominent 
street corner was the result of something in the nature 
of a financial catastrophe. Had they left any con- 
siderable property some trace of them would be found 
amongst the wills and administrations at Doctors' 
Commons, and here I have searched for them in vain. 
They were both buried at St. Peter's, Cornhill, in the 
south aisle, where John's wife Christian had already 
been laid, Thomas on January 3, 1799, John on May 
23, 1804. 

It appears from the will of Isabella Hardy, the 
daughter of Thomas, proved in London in December, 
1796,* that he had also another daughter, " Mrs. 
Hanmer," and a son, Thomas Flasby Hardy ; and 
that at the date of this will, October 29, 1796, Isabella 
and her brother were living at Leadenhall Street with 

* Canterbury, Prerog. Court. 



The End of the Hardware men i 27 

their uncle John, his daughter Maria, and his nephew, 
Robert Cumming. The latter, who was of course the 
son of Mrs. Elizabeth Cumming of Kirkby Lonsdale, 
seems more likely to have had a hand in carrying on 
the business than Thomas Flasby Hardy, who is 
referred to in his sister's will as " late of Jamaica." 

The contents of the will confirm the supposition 
that the father and uncle were no longer men of wealth. 
Isabella does not mention her father at all, and only 
refers to her uncle John as owing her money. Her 
brother, too, was in her debt to the amount of £1200. 
She releases her " dear brother " and her uncle from 
the money they owe her ; gives her clothes and trinkets 
in London to her cousin Maria, and her clothes and 
trinkets at Pill, near Bristol, to Mrs. Hanmer and her 
daughter Maria Hanmer, who with her brother Thomas 
Hardy Hanmer are specially provided for by giving 
them a sort of claim for the £1200 due from their 
uncle Thomas, " late of Jamaica," on their coming of 
age. The will was proved by Maria Hardy as executrix 
alone. Thomas Flasby Hardy was appointed executor, 
but did not join in the probate. That office, though 
accompanied by the gift of the residue of the estate, 
promised, as we may imagine, less profit than em- 
barrassment. 

§ 2. Joseph Hardy of Sutton Valence (1723-1786) 

Having disposed of Thomas and John Hardy and 
their descendants as far as we know of them we 
come next to their younger brother Joseph. Our 
earliest record of him is his admission as a sizar at 
Christ's College, Cambridge, on March 20, 1746, 
where he is described as being already in holy orders. 



128 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

As he was then about twenty-three years of age we 
may suppose he had obtained a curacy and had been 
doing the work of some absentee parson in the north ; 
or perhaps he had been helping his uncle John at 
Kirkburton. In any case, his university career seems 
to have been only nominal, for only six months after 
his admission he was appointed by the Clothworkers' 
Company headmaster of their school at Sutton Valence 
in Kent. This appointment was probably in some 
measure due to the City connections of his brothers 
the hardwaremen, but at the same time it is of some 
interest to point out a still earlier connection with this 
part of the country which may have had something 
to do with the matter. Some five or six miles from 
Sutton in the direction of Maidstone is the parish of 
Loose, the incumbent of which from 1712 to 1722 
was the Rev. Henry Briggs, now (in 1746) Rector of 
Holt in Norfolk, chaplain-in-ordinary to the King, 
and father of Hobart and John Briggs, the two young 
men in the Excise and Post Office already mentioned. 
He was the son of Dr. William Briggs, f.r.s., of Town 
Mailing, near Maidstone, who was physician-in- 
ordinary to King William, and died in 1704. Besides 
his son Henry he also left a daughter, who was married 
to Dennis Martin of Loose, and who therefore probably 
still remained in the neighbourhood after her brother's 
departure to Norfolk.* 

On the other hand, not only were Henry Briggs and 
his sister grandchildren of a first cousin of the Rev. 
Joseph Briggs, Vicar of Kirkburton, but Henry had 
married at Kirkburton on September 15, 1720, as his 
second wife, Grace, a daughter of Joseph Briggs of 

* Hasted, History of Kent, First Edition, Vol. II, p. 241. 



Joseph Hardy and the Briggs laniily 129 

Liverpool, and consequently the vicar's granddaughter. 
This clearly shows the intimacy between the Yorkshire 
and Kent branches of the Briggs family existing at 
the time when there must also have been a close 
intimacy between the former and John Hardy of 
Kirkburton ; and considering Joseph Briggs's con- 
nection with John Briggs, the Vicar of Kirkby Lons- 
dale, it is not unlikely that it extended to the family 
of John Hardy's brother William, who had remained 
in the Kirkby Lonsdale neighbourhood. Indeed, it 
seems very probable that the name of Joseph was given 
by Wilham Hardy to his son out of comphment to 
the Vicar of Kirkburton, who was perhaps Joseph 
Hardy's godfather. It is noteworthy that the eldest 
son of Henry Briggs was also christened Joseph, and 
he would be within a year or two Joseph Hardy's 
contemporary in birth.* 

Joseph Hardy continued in his post as master of 
Sutton Valence school from 1746 for the remaining 

* According to the Briggs pedigree in Blomefield's History of 
Norfolk (Vol. II, p. 640), the Vicar of Kirkburton was the son of 
Samuel Briggs of Wakefield. Dr. Morehouse (Hist, of Kirkburton) 
says he was the son of William, and identifies him with Joseph, son 
of Wilham, baptised at Wakefield, May 25, 1C39. But there was 
also a Joseph, son of Joseph Briggs, baptised there January 28, 
1 640-1, and this corresponds with the admission at Magdalene 
College, Cambridge, from Wakefield Grammar School, of Joseph, 
son of Joseph Briggs of Wakefield, deceased, "14 annos natus " 
on May 12, 1654. Again, although in Blomefield's pedigree Mrs. 
Henry Briggs's father is called William, according to Mrs. F. A. 
Collins (Kirkburton Parish Registers, Vol. II, p. ccclxxxi) his name was 
Joseph. Thus at the time of the baptisms of Henry Briggs's son and of 
Joseph Hardy, the latter's christian name had run through three 
generations of the Briggs family, whereas it is entirely absent from 
all the pedigrees of the Barbon Hardys previous to this time. 
The untrustworthiness of Blomefield's pedigree is pointed out by 
Dr. Jessop in Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, Vol. VII, p. 507. 

K 



1 30 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

forty years of his life. Sutton Valence, otherwise 
Town Sutton, lies on the steep ridge of hills running 
east and west about five miles north of Staplehurst. 
It has a magnificent view over the Weald of Kent and 
Sussex — indeed, the outlook from the battlements of 
the church tower may be called panoramic, and it is 
credibly stated that in favourable states of the 
atmosphere it includes a glimpse of the English 
Channel. But notwithstanding his healthy surround- 
ings our ancestor Joseph only lived to the age of 
sixty-three, predeceasing by several years all his elder 
brethren, and it is remarkable that all his eight children 
except two seem to have died young. 

The Clothworkers' School was founded by William 
Lambe, who was master of the company in 1569-70. 
From a rough woodcut, which may be seen reproduced 
on a post card, it seems that the original building, 
which was replaced by the present ones in Mid- 
Victorian times,* was a large three-gabled house in 
Tudor brick ornamented with the familiar lozenge or 
diaper pattern in bricks of a different colour. On 
your left as you face this building is shown the row of 
almshouses, and on the right a Georgian or Queen 
Anne house with an entrance under a hood on brackets 
flanked on each side by two sash-windows with promi- 
nent keystones. Above is a row of five similar windows 
on the first floor surmounted by a deep parapet. All 
these buildings abutted immediately on the street. 
After the Elizabethan buildings had been pulled down 
the Georgian house was left standing till about thirty 
years ago, as appears from a photograph of it also 

* In 1910 additional buildings were erected on an altogether 
different site outside the town. 







a 

z z 

< 5 

c ^ 

o - 



Joseph Hardy : Sutton Valence School 1 3 1 

reproduced on a modern post card and labelled " the 
old grammar school, Sutton Valence, Kent." 

This house was undoubtedly built as a residence for 
the master, and judging from its architectural style 
one would say it was of at least as early a date as the 
appointment of the Rev. Joseph Hardy. The records 
of the company contain nothing more definite about 
it than an entry in the Court Minute Book dated 
December 5, 1804, showing that some time between 
1594 and that time the company had expended very 
considerable sums in erecting it. Before this the 
master had " a convenient chamber or lodging with 
other necessary rooms," which were ordered to be 
constructed by the company in 1594, the founder 
having himself apparently left nothing but the school 
and almshouses, without providing anything for their 
repair or the housing of the master. The original 
endowment, according to Hasted,* was a good house 
and garden, besides salaries of £20 for the master and 
£10 for an usher. There was also a salary of ;£5 " for 
an English usher " left by will in 1713. 

Joseph Hardy seems to have married about 1750 ; 
the eldest of his children, whose baptisms I have 
discovered at Sutton Valence, being born in October, 
1751. But we have no clue to his wife's family or the 
place of their marriage. We only know from the grant 
of administration to her of her husband's estate on 
his death that her name was Mary.f 

In 1755 he took the degree of LL.B. at Cambridge, 
and it appears from entries of his children's baptisms 
in the parish registers that some time between 1759 

* Hist. Kent, First Edition, Vol. II, p. 415. 
t Cant. Prerog. Court, August 16, 1786. 



132 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

and 1 76 1 he added to his duties as a schoolmaster 
those of curate of Sutton Valence, which were no 
doubt identical with those supposed to be performed 
by the vicar, and therefore included the duties be- 
longing to the adjoining parish of East Sutton. The 
vicar or his representative " preached alternately at 
the two churches on Sunday, morning and afternoon."* 
The holder of the benefice from 1759 to 1761 was 
Samuel Venner, who may then have been too old for 
service, for he died in 1764. He was succeeded by 
Nicholas Broome, but from the evidence of the registers 
it appears the curate still continued in office ; and 
doubtless, as a tolerably consistent absentee, the new 
vicar, who held the living for forty-one years, found 
the school with its clerical headmaster a very con- 
venient institution. For, according to Hasted, writing 
about the year 1790, the parsonage houses both in 
East Sutton and Sutton Valence had been for many 
years in the possession of the Payne and Filmer 
families respectively under leases from the Dean and 
Chapter of Canterbury, who were the patrons. 

In 1762 the schoolmaster was presented by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury to the rectory of Headcorn, 
a village about five miles south of Sutton Valence. 
His signature is found in the registers of both churches, 
but as the curate to whom a memorial is erected in 
the church at Headcorn must ordinarily have done 
the duty there, the rector's appearance can only have 
been occasional. 

In 1769 he was nominated by Sir Thomas Rider, 
the lord of the manor, to the perpetual curacy of 
Bilsington,t near Winchilsea, of the clear value, 

* Hasted. t Lambeth Register. 



Joseph Hardy and his Benefices 133 

according to Hasted, of £30 ; and again he was pre- 
sented by the Archbishop in 1772 to the vicarage of 
Monkton* in the Isle of Thanet, which included the 
chapels of Birchington and VVoodchurch. These 
places are, of course, so far from Sutton Valence that 
no one who resided there can be supposed to have 
done any regular duty at any of them, and it is notice- 
able that the parsonage at Monkton had for ages been 
let for secular purposes by the Dean and Chapter as 
lords of the manor, and was known by the ancient 
name of the Aumbry (or Almonry) Farm.f 

The case of this parson-schoolmaster is a striking 
illustration of the way in which preferments were 
dealt with in the days of pluralities and non-residence. 
It was, of course, though economical, a very bad 
system, and hable to scandalous abuses, but it did not 
follow, as we have seen at Kirkburton — and it may 
have been the same at Sutton Valence and Headcorn — 
that because the vicar himself was an absentee the 
parishioners were without a faithful and active pastor 
according to the requirements of that day. At the 
end of the eighteenth century considerable public 
excitement was caused by some of the bishops taking 
action to compel the beneficed clergy to reside, and 
the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1801 give 
one some idea of how the system struck a contem- 
porary. One correspondent argues that to compel the 
beneficed clergy to " undertake the drudgery " of 
parochial duty would be to " degrade the Church," 
because the upper classes would not then take orders ; 
and, moreover, the curates employed by the vicars 

* Lambeth Register. f Hasted, Vol. IV, p. 310. 



134 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

would lose their occupation and be turned adrift.* 
To this it was rejoined that the curates themselves, 
who were sometimes beneficed, took as many cures 
as they could get hold of, and lived for the sake of 
amusements and company in a market-town sometimes 
a dozen miles from their benefices. f 

The Rev. Joseph Hardy, as appears from a tablet on 
the'south wall of Sutton Valence Church, died on August 
5, 1786, aged sixty-three. He was buried in Lambe's, 
the Founder's Chapel, which was on the south side of 
the chancel ; but the tablet does not indicate that 
spot, the church having been entirely rebuilt between 
the years 1823 and 1828, though mainly on the old 
plan. J The memorial to the schoolmaster seems to 
have been erected on the occasion of the death on 
October 16, 1823, of his daughter " Harriet, wife of 
William Kingsley, Esquire, of Sittingbourne," who 
himself died June 30, 1827, and is commemorated in 
addition. It may be reasonably concluded that 
notwithstanding his numerous sources of income the 
Rev. Joseph Hardy left but little wealth behind him ; 
for he died without a will, and only eleven days later 
letters of administration of his effects were granted to 
his widow, Mary. We shall find her still hving as late 
as May, 1796. 

§ 3. The Rev. Edward Hardy (1714-1796) 

Edward Hardy, the eldest of Joseph's brethren, 
took his degree of B.A. and deacon's orders in 1736 

* Gent. Mag., 1801, p. S97. 
t Ibid., p. io8g. 

J See An Account of the Church, by C. F. Angell, f.s.a., a past- 
master of the Clothworkers' Company (1874). 



Edward Hardy ; Sevenoaks School 135 

and priest's orders in 1741.* In 1740 he married 
Miss Esther Curteis, daughter of the Rev. Thomas 
Curteis of Sevenoaks, and he was presented to the 
rectory of Halstead, about five miles from Sevenoaks, 
in 1771.* 

It appears from the second edition of Hasted's 
History of Kent, Vol. Ill (1797), p. 19, that William 
Hardy, undoubtedly an error for Edward Hardy, f 
who was Rector of Halstead, was also " master of the 
school at Sevenoke " ; but from various books of 
account, etc., belonging to the governors of that school, 
it is clear that he was never headmaster, and there is 
no name given in the books of any assistant-master. 
It is amusing to observe that the salary paid from 
1719 to the headmaster included provision for an 
usher or assistant-master. The salary down to 1771, 
when Henry Whitfield, a relative by marriage of the 
Curteis family, { was appointed, was only £50, but 
\vithin ten years after that £25 was added as "a 
contribution towards the usher's place." Yet in 1774 
a special resolution was passed by the governors that 
Mr. Whitfield should provide an under-master " to 
encourage the school." We can scarcely suppose 
there was any under-master before this, and this it 
was, doubtless, which led to Edward Hardy being 
appointed to the post. We should perhaps not be far 
wrong in concluding that the arrangement between 
the master and his assistant was something of the 
same nature as that between the absentee incum- 
bent and his curate. Nor would this supposition be 

* Lambeth Register. 

] It is repeated in his account of Sevenoaks. See below. 

X Berry's County Genealogies — Kent. 



136 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

altogether inconsistent with Hasted's statement in his 
first edition (1778), that the school was then flourishing 
" under the Rev. Henry Whitfield." His not mention- 
ing Edward Hardy might be due to his appointment 
not having come to the author's knowledge when he 
went to press. 

The fact that Edward Hardy was brother-in-law of 
Dr. Thomas Curteis, who had succeeded his father 
as Rector of Sevenoaks, is quite sufficient to account 
for his connection with the school, even if it was his 
ability as a teacher which caused it to flourish for the 
remaining twenty years of his life. Dr. Curteis was a 
governor, as was also the Duke of Dorset, to whom 
Dr. Curteis was private chaplain at Knowle, the ducal 
residence in the immediate neighbourhood. The 
family of Curteis is amongst those well known in the 
Weald of Kent, and their pedigrees and connections 
are displayed in Berry's County Genealogies. The date 
of Edward Hardy's marriage appears from a reference 
in his will to his wife's marriage settlement, which 
comprised a sum of £2000, but it seems she became 
entitled sooner or later to something like double that 
amount at the least, as on her death her personal 
estate was sworn at " under £5000," and this was 
probably in addition to the settlement. 

It does not appear how Edward Hardy became 
acquainted with this lady. Her father, besides being 
patron, rector, and vicar of the living of Sevenoaks, 
had held for some thirty years the uncommonly rich 
benefice of Wrotham, which was in the gift of the 
Archbishop, and is valued by Hasted at £1000 a year. 
He died in 1747, two years before his daughter's 
marriage, and was succeeded by his son. The latter 



Edward Hardy : The Curteis Family 137 

was of Jesus College, but took his degree of B.A. in 
1727, and was therefore some years senior to Edward 
Hardy, who was admitted at Christ's in 1733, but the 
acquaintance may nevertheless have arisen through 
some friendship at Cambridge. 

From the time of his taking orders till he obtained 
the rectory of Halstead we have no record of uncle 
Edward's career. He was perhaps a hard-working 
curate in the north ; but I imagine it equally probable 
that he was at Sevenoaks, though whether during 
that period he performed there any clerical duties, 
hard-working or otherwise, is an open question. The 
registers of 1736 and some years later contain no 
traces of a curate, and the earliest record they contain 
of any function performed by him is a marriage on 
April 5, 1775, where he is described as Rector of 
Halstead. His acceptance of the benefice of that place 
would rather seem in the nature of such things to be a 
reason for his living elsewhere, especially having regard 
to Hasted's account in 1778 of " the present state of 
Halstead," which consists of the following brief but 
expressive sentences : " The village of Halstead has 
nothing worth notice in it. This parish lies upon the 
chalk hills, and the lands of it are much covered with 
flints." The rector would doubtless find it preferable 
to let the parsonage house to a farmer and reside in 
the nearest market-town, where " company and 
amusements " would not be entirely lacking. Both 
in the vdll of his cousin John dated in 1776 and in his 
own in 1796 he is simply described as of Sevenoaks. 

In performing the marriage there in April, 1775, he 
was probably only acting on account of the illness of 
his brother-in-law, the rector, who died very soon 



138 Children of William Hardy of Park House 

after. On March 30, 1775, Edward Hardy was instituted 
as his successor.* This, however, was only in the 
capacity of a family warming-pan. The patronage was 
vested in David Papillon, the son-in-law and trustee 
of the late rector, whose son Thomas Sackville Curteis 
was in due course presented in 1777 on Hardy's 
resignation.! 

The intimate connection of Edward Hardy with the 
Curteis family seems to account to a considerable 
extent for the patronage obtained, not only by himself, 
but by his brother Joseph. Dr. Curteis, in addition 
to his family living at Sevenoaks, the chaplaincy at 
Knole, and two or three other posts, held a canonry 
at Canterbury from 1755,$ and the Hardys' livings of 
Headcorn, Monkton, and Halstead were all in the gift 
of the Archbishop. In the same way we may readily 
account for Dr. Curteis obtaining for himself from the 
Dean and Chapter in 1756 the rectory of St. Dionis, 
Backchurch, in the City of London. J This church, 
which was pulled down in 1877, stood in the corner 
between Lime Street and Fenchurch Street, and 
consequently was very near the abode of Edward 
Hardy's brothers in Leadenhall Street. It would not 
have been surprising to find that he was at an early 
date curate of St. Dionis, but that this was not the 
case is clear from the names of the curates regularly 
entered in the parish registers. The rector's signature, 
it need scarcely be mentioned, is conspicuous by its 
absence. 

Edward Hardy died in 1797, § and his will, dated 
May 20, 1796, was proved on February 16, 1797, by 

* Lambeth Register. f Hasted. 

X Lambeth Register. \ Hasted. 



Edward Hardy s Will 1 39 

his nephew Robert Cumming.* After referring to 
his wife's marriage settlement he gives his own property 
to his own relations. Besides Robert Gumming he 
names his brothers John and Thomas, the widows of 
his brothers Joseph and William, his nieces Isabella, 
Maria, and Mrs. Kingsley, and his nephew George, 
who, as will be seen below, was the youngest son of his 
brother Joseph. There is no mention of Henry Hardy 
or of his nephew Thomas Flasby Hardy. His widow, 
who was appointed executrix, did not join in proving 
the will. She survived her husband three years, and 
it is evidence that she left no issue that administration 
of her estate was granted to her nephew, the Rev. 
Thomas Sackville Curteis, as one of her next of kin.f 

* Canterbury Prerog. Court. 

\ Cant. Prerog. Court, April ii, 1799. 



CHAPTER IX 

SIXTH GENERATION, CONTINUED 

Division 2. Children of Thomas Hardy of Mir field 
(1719-1779) 

THOMAS HARDY, the Vicar of Mirfield, seems 
to have had only two children, whose baptisms 
are both recorded in the Mirfield parish register, as 
follows : 

William, July 4, 1719 ; and 
John, February 25, 1722-3. 

From the college books we find William, son of the 
Rev. Mr. Hardy, born at Mirfield, admitted at Christ's, 
Cambridge, May 26, 1738. Like his cousin Edward, 
he was educated at Kirkby Lonsdale school under Mr. 
Noble.* He was also a sizar, but it does not appear 
that he was an exhibitioner. He took his degrees 
of B.A. in 1741 and M.A. in 1745. He was probably 
identical with the Rev. William Hardy, m.a., who, 
according to the Archbishop's register, was ordained 
deacon on March 14, 1741, and priest September 23, 
1744, and who was instituted to the rectory of Eastwell, 
near Wye, in Kent, on the presentation of the Earl of 
Winchilsea on July 6, 1745. As there is no mention of 
him in the will of his brother John dated October 21, 

* " In schola de Kirkby Lonsdale sub M"». Noble." In the case 
of Edward the words are simply " apud Kirkby Lonsdale," etc. 

140 



John Hardy of Bridge Place 141 

1776, it is probable he was then dead and had left no 
issue. If we are right in identifying him with the 
Rector of Eastwell, it will be noticed that his presenta- 
tion to that living precedes the appointment of his 
cousin Joseph at Sutton Valence, and therefore marks 
the earliest arrival of his generation in Kent. But 
this throws no light on the problem of what brought 
them all there. 

Of the second son of the Vicar of Mirfield, who also 
settled in Kent, and was perhaps after all the pioneer, 
we have no record between his baptism and his will. 
The will is an important clue, showing clearly the 
connection between the families of the three brothers — 
William of Park House, Thomas of Mirfield, and John 
of Kirkburton. The testator describes himself as of 
Bridge Place, near Canterbury. According to Hasted 
this was the manor-house of the manor of Bridge, 
which was purchased by John Taylor of Bifrons in 
1704. He pulled down all but one wing previous to 
his death in 1729. This wing has survived to modern 
times in the shape of a large square house grown over 
with ivy and standing near the church. In the floor 
of the church a slab shows the place of burial of 
" John Hardy of Bridge Place, Esquire," in 1779. 
Both Bridge Place and Bifrons were, according to 
Hasted, the property of the grandson of John Taylor 
as late as 1790, so that we may conclude that John 
Hardy was either a leaseholder or the occupier of the 
place under a marriage settlement, his wife being 
perhaps the aforesaid John Taylor's daughter. 

It appears from John Hardy's will, which is dated 
October 21, 1776, that he had only one child, a 
daughter named Frances Catherina, then a minor and 



142 Children of Thomas Hardy of Mirfield 

unmarried, and that the name of his wife, who proved 
the will in the Canterbury Prerogative Court on 
September 10, 1779, was Anne. In default of his 
daughter leaving issue he gives his property ultimately 
to his cousins, " Joseph Hardy of Town Sutton, clerk, 
Edward Hardy of Sevenoaks, clerk, John and Thomas 
Hardy of Bishopsgate, hardwaremen, EHzabeth Gum- 
ming of Kirkby Lonsdale, widow, and Thomas Hardy 
of Kirkburton, Yorkshire, and his two sisters." 
Whether or not Frances Catherina married and had 
issue we are not able to state. We can, however, aver 
that no tradition of any share of her fortune having 
passed to her cousin Joseph or his representatives has 
yet reached those of his descendants who are at present 
in being. 

Our record of the last-named " Thomas and his two 
sisters," who would come next in the series of the 
sixth generation, has already been given with our 
account of their father. Of Robert, the son of Eliza- 
beth Cumming of Kirkby Lonsdale, and of the de- 
scendants of John and Thomas Hardy of Bishopsgate, 
we have also dealt in anticipation. We come therefore 
at last to ourselves, the descendants of their brother 
Joseph. 



CHAPTER X 

SEVENTH GENERATION 

Children of Joseph Hardy of Sutton Valence 

THE parish register at Sutton Valence gives the 
following hst with dates both of birth and 
baptism of the schoolmaster's children : 

John, born 22, bap. 30 October, 1751. 
Thomas, b. 21 March, bap. 16 April, 1753. 
Matilda Elizabeth, b. 28 July, bap. 9 August, 1755 

(d. 15, buried 20 April, 1765). 
Anna Christiana, b. 26 August, bap. 13 September, 

1756. 
Hariot, b. 23 March, bap. 20 April, 1759. 
William, b. 16 March, bap. 4 May, 1761. 
Joseph, b. 13 February, bap. 9 March, 1764. 
George, b. 16 November, bap. 16 December, 1766. 

Of these John, Thomas, and William must have died 
young, as Joseph their younger brother is described 
as the eldest son in the entry of his admission at 
Pembroke College, Cambridge, on May 30, 1782. 

Of Anna Christiana I have no trace beyond her 
baptism. She is not mentioned in her uncle Edward's 
will dated May 20, 1796. In fact, as he only mentions 
Hariot (Mrs. Kingsley) and George, it may be con- 
cluded that none of the others were then living. Of 
Joseph it is said, according to a rehable tradition, that 

M3 



144 Children of Joseph Hardy 

he was chaplain at Knole to the Duke of Dorset, 
which, from what we know of his family connections, 
seems quite probable, and that he died unmarried in 
early life. 

Of George's marriage I have not been able to find 
any direct evidence. The date July 25, 1788, and the 
name of his wife Mary I have found at the foot of a 
list of his children's birthdays written on the upper 
part of a half-sheet of foolscap which was formerly 
in the possession of his youngest daughter Hannah. 
The marriage is registered neither at Sutton Valence 
nor at Shoreditch, where the first-born was christened, 
nor at St. Peter's, Cornhill. The bridegroom being in 
his twenty-second year, we may conjecture that it 
was a runaway match. Of the bride all we can say is 
that her age was all but twenty-three,* and that her 
surname of Dalton is decidedly suggestive of the North 
Country. It occurs as a place-name in the Parlia- 
mentary Gazetteer about a dozen times — always in 
Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, or Lancashire. 
There is a manor of Dalton in Lancashire immediately 
adjoining the Westmorland boundary. 

George Hardy's coming to London can scarcely 
have been altogether unconnected with the residence 
of his uncles in Leadenhall Street, and it is possible 
that he was for a time in their employ. But it seems 
more probable that he went into the Excise Office on 
his first arrival, which may well have been before he 
married, or at least as early as 1790, as that is the last 
year in which the name of David Papillon appears 
in the annual list of the Excise Commissioners. He 

* Her birthday, July 27, 1765, is added to the list of her 
children's with her surname. 



George Hardy of the Excise Office 145 

it was, no doubt, who introduced George Hardy into 
the office. He had been on the Board since 1756, and 
senior commissioner since 178 1, and , another David 
Papillon had been a commissioner many years before 
him.* He was a sort of uncle-in-law to George, having 
married a Miss Curteis of Sevenoaks, whose sister was 
the wife of the Rev. Edward Hardy. 

George's occupation is not mentioned in the earher 
registers of his children's baptisms, but in 1795 he is 
described at Bethnal Green as a gentleman, and in 
1796 as a clerk. The first express mention we have 
of his being a clerk in the Excise Office is on April 26, 
1800, the record of his son John's presentation at 
Christ's Hospital by Alderman Sir WiUiam Herne.f 
In the Royal Calendar and Court Directory for 1818 
he appears amongst the officials under " Excise 
Office : Bills of Exchange Department." In 1824 he 
is moved up to " General Accountants : Papers, etc.," 
where he remains till 1829. From 1829 to 1833 he 
appears as " George Hardy, Esquire," being moved up 
in 1832, the year of his death, to " Debentures, etc." 

Of the Government clerk who thus died in harness at 
the age of sixty-six tradition tells us that, if he had 
been content not to hold his head quite so high, he 
might himself have risen higher and been better endowed 
with the rewards which this world can bestow. We 
may gather that he had inherited something of that 
modest yet self-sufficient pride which was characteristic 
of his statesmen ancestors. Some of his colleagues, 
like the Kemps, with whom he became allied by mar- 

* See the Court and City Register (Rider's Merlin) from 1744. 
t He was elected for Castle Baynard ward in 1796, and was 
sheriff before 1800 {Court and City Register). 

L 



146 Children of Joseph Hardy 

riage, may have had their kin in the ranks of the 
service for a generation or more, but it was not every- 
body in the office whose uncle was brother-in-law 
to the senior commissioner, whose father was a parson 
with three or four livings in the gift of an archbishop, 
or whose elder brother was chaplain to a duke. Proud 
though he might be of these connections, he would 
not be disposed to boast of them, and still less to 
trade upon them. Cadging for promotion might suit 
others, but for him honourable conduct and steady 
attention to business ought to be enough to secure his 
deserts. If these were his sentiments it need not 
surprise us that after a long and severe struggle to 
maintain his rapidly growing family in early life his 
rise in officialdom should be slow, especially in the 
atmosphere which prevailed in the days of the Regency, 
and that he should be able to leave little or nothing 
for the support of his widow, notwithstanding nearly 
half a century of quill-driving and arithmetic in 
Government employ. Probably she had a small 
pension. She survived her husband eleven years, 
dying in the house of her son John in Canonbury 
Square on January 21, 1843. She is remembered by 
more than one of her grandchildren as sweet and 
charming, and on the grandchildren of her grand- 
children her portrait, painted in her old age in a 
close-fitting mob-cap, still looks down with a quiet 
smile. 



CHAPTER XI 

EIGHTH GENERATION 

§ I. George Hardy and his Children (1789-1892) 

FROM the entries of the baptisms of George 
Hardy's numerous children something may be 
learnt of his early life and circumstances, and inci- 
dentally some light may be thrown upon the topo- 
graphy of the veritable suburbs of London City at 
the end of the eighteenth century, when the state of 
things was very different from anything the present 
generation has known. It should perhaps be premised 
that the Excise Office was then in Broad Street, and 
that it was necessary for a clerk, who had to be on 
his stool at an early hour, to have his dwelling-place 
within an easy walk of that spot. The era of the London 
omnibus dates only from 1829. 

The following is a list of the children of George and 
Mary Hardy as entered in the registers of their bap- 
tisms, the first three being at St. Leonard's, Shore- 
ditch, and the rest at St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green : 



George 


bom May 25, bap. June 21, 1789 


William 


„ July 9 „ Aug. 4,1790 


John 


,, May 9* ,, June 3, 1792 



* This date is the only one which does not agree with the hst 
referred to above, where it is given as May 7. In the presentation 
book at Christ's Hospital it is given as May; 9. 

147 



1 48 George Hardy and his Children 



Harlot bom Dec. 2, '93, 


bap. Jan. 5, 1794. 


Harriot 


July 15 


„ Aug. 26, 1795. 


George Frederick ,, 


Aug. 9 


„ Sep. 4, 1796. 


Harriet 


Oct. 15 


Nov. II, 1798. 


Mary Ann 


Mar. 19 


April 19, 1801. 


Eliza \ 
Hannah Maria ] " 


Mar. 9 


May 4, 1804. 


Lewis Adam 


Mar. 5 


„ April 3, 1808. 



In the first entry the parents' address is given as 
" the Curtain," and in the second as " Holywell 
Mount." No such addresses now exist, and some little 
investigation of the ancient state of Shoreditch is 
necessary to find them. If the two were not identical, 
they were both, at any rate, in or very near to what 
is now Curtain Road, a thoroughfare far from inviting 
to a newly married couple in search of a genteel though 
modest home. In a district mainly interested in the 
manufacture of household furniture, it runs north and 
south on the west side of, and parallel to, the high road 
called Shoreditch ; which, as in the days of John 
Gilpin, connects Bishopsgate Street, through Norton 
Folgate, with Kingsland, Edmonton, and Ware. 
Curtain Road is connected with Shoreditch by Wor- 
ship Street at its south end, about the middle by 
Holywell Lane, and at its north end by the piece of the 
Old Street Road between the " London Apprentice " 
and St. Leonard's Church. 

In the maps by R. Blome in Strype's editions of 
Stow's Survey of London (1720 and 1755) " the Cur- 
tain " is shown as a wide roadway or strip of open space 
corresponding with that part of Curtain Road which 
now runs from Worship Street (then Hog Lane) as far 



Old Shoreditch 149 

only as Holywell Lane. The name of the Curtain, 
which it will be remembered was borne by one of the 
theatres contemporary with Shakespeare's first arrival 
in London,* was derived from the fortification, a wall 
between two bastions, which evidently bounded the 
east side of this open space. f This fortification would 
not be complete without a ditch, and this was pro- 
vided along the opposite side of the strip by a water- 
course, which reached it from the north-west, turning 
south at a point a short distance further north than 
the end of Holywell Lane. This is all made plain by 
an elaborate map of the parish of Shoreditch by 
Chassereau dated 1745. J This also shows, by shading, 
what was evidently the original " Holywell Mount " — 
a mound nearly opposite the end of Holywell Lane, 
owned separately from the adjoining property. It 
was bounded on the north and east by the aforesaid 
watercourse, which came along " Willow Walk " (the 
site of the present Great Eastern Street) from a festive 
watering-place in Old Street known as the Baths of 
St. Agnes Clear, and on the south-east by a foot- 
path, which crossed the watercourse by a bridge 
and ran through the fields in a south-west direction 
along what is now Scrutton Street and Holywell 
Row. 

Chassereau also shows a sort of road or way called 
" Ditchside " continuing the " Curtain " a short dis- 
tance further north, that is, to the point where the 
ditch turns off round the Mount. In 1756 an Act of 

* Stow's Survey of London ; Arber's Introduction to Gosson's 
School of Abuse, p. 8. 

t Cunningham's London Past and Present, ed. Wheatley. 

X A copy is in the Grace Collection (Britiih Museum), portfolio 
XVI, No. 4, and there is another at St. Leonard's Church. 



1 50 George Hardy and his Children 

Parliament* was passed for improving the road 
" through Worship Street and the Curtain to the 
Ditchside next Holywell Mount," and making a new 
road thence through garden ground to the London 
Apprentice. It was clearly under this Act that Cur- 
tain Road came into existence, but we j:annot be 
certain how long after 1756 the work was completed 
or when new houses were built along it. 

In Ellis's History of Shoreditch and Norton Folgate 
(1798) he says that Holywell Mount, covering three 
acres, was levelled about the year 1787, and that 
streets had since been built on the site.f and Hor- 
wood's Map of London in 1799 shows these streets and 
Curtain Road laid out as they are to-day. All we can 
say therefore for certain is that the conversion of the 
Curtain and Ditchside into Curtain Road and the 
covering of the Mount with houses took place at some 
time between 1787 and 1798 — possibly to some extent 
before, but probably almost entirely after May 25, 
1789, the day of the appearance of Mrs. George Hardy's 
first-born. 

The only houses now existing in Curtain Road 
which can have been standing anything like a hundred 
years are the rather picturesque block on the east side 
at the south end — in fact, on what was originally 
" the Curtain." It seems probable that these were 
built when the improvements were at an early stage, 
and George Hardy may therefore have lived there in 
1789. " Holywell Mount " might be a vague way of 
referring to one of the newly built streets on that site ; 
but more probably, as it seems to me, it was another 

* 29 Geo. II, cap. 44. 

f p. 207. Chassereau gives the area as 3 a. 2 r. 13 p. 



The Curtain and Holywell Mount 1 5 1 

name for the short continuation of the Curtain at the 
side of the Mount, which had formerly been called 
Ditchside. The old maps show buildings adjoining 
this spot at an early date on ground which formed 
the " back side " of the ancient Holywell Priory, and 
the course of the improvements would barely have 
reached this point in^iygo. Indeed it might be sup- 
posed that the " Curtain " also was only a euphemism 
for Ditchside, and that both addresses refer to the one 
abode opposite the Mount. There is, however, an odd 
little coincidence which inclines'one to the old buildings 
as the earher home of the youthful couple. The blind 
alley which runs along the south side of these buildings 
bears the name of Hearn Street. May it not be that 
Alderman Heme, who, as already mentioned, gave 
them a presentation for their boy at Christ's Hospital 
in 1800, was the owner of these buildings, and therefore 
George Hardy's landlord in 1789 ? 

It is not surprising, considering the alterations which 
must necessarily have been in progress in Curtain Road 
in 1789 and later, that our ancestor and his family 
did not remain there long. The next entry in the 
register gives their abode in June, 1792, as " Union 
Street." There is no Union Street actually in Shore- 
ditch parish, but that recognised by the parish clerk 
as belonging to it runs east from Bishopsgate Street 
without* to Crispin Street, and has since with its 
continuation, Paternoster Row, been renamed Brush- 
field Street. It was doubtless called Union Street 

• Bishopsgate Streets Within and Without are now offi ially 
renamed " Bishopsgate " : a rather unfortunate change, tending to 
suggest that the original " Gate " was a street, as it might well 
have been, according to Northern or Midland usage, whereas it was 
an opening in the City wall. 



152 George Hardy and his Children 

because it united the City with Spitalfields, at the 
same time passing through a small area which was 
outside both, known as the Liberty of the Old Artillery 
Ground. The name of this area lying immediately 
outside the City speaks for itself. As a practising 
ground for the gunners from the Tower it did not want 
a parish church, and after it was superseded by the 
New Artillery Ground near Bunhill Fields and built 
upon, it still remained extra-parochial. Consequently 
the inhabitants had to go for christenings, marriages, 
and burials to such neighbouring church as they chose. 
It was therefore natural that the third child of 
George Hardy, if born in this Liberty, should be 
christened at the same church as the two elder ones. 
There is nothing in the register to guide us to any 
particular house in Union Street, but the part within 
the Liberty is marked off by the backs of the houses 
in two streets which cross it, Duke Street and Gun 
Street. The general appearance of the little houses, 
now nearly all made into shops and some rebuilt, is 
squalid and depressing, but of course they have greatly 
deteriorated with age and the increasing closeness of 
their surroundings. The cross streets do not seem to 
have been built till after 1799, as they are not shown 
on Horwood's map of that date. 

The entries in the register at Bethnal Green give us 
no information as to residence, and our next evidence 
on that point is the record of John Hardy's admission 
to Christ's Hospital on April 26, 1800. His father is 
there described as a clerk in the Excise Office, residing 
at 2 George Street, Bethnal Green. Of George Street 
only a small part remains, and is now called Code 
Street. It runs north from Buxton Street (formerly 



Union Street and George Street 153 

Spicer Street) to the East London Railway close to 
Shoreditch Station. In 1800, as appears from Hor- 
wood's map, it extended north across the site of the 
railway to St. John Street, and south across the site 
of the present extension of Truman, Hanbury, and 
Buxton's brewery. No. 2 therefore has certainly 
disappeared. Judging from what has the misfortune 
to remain of it, George Street at its best consisted of 
very humble abodes, but in 1800 it was quite on the 
outskirts of the town. Spicer Street in two or three 
minutes led from it to a large area of garden ground 
at the back of the houses in Mile End. Beyond St. 
Matthew's Church to the north and east was the open 
country, and even on the west side of the church were 
fields only just being laid out as new streets. 

The next place of abode of which we have any 
knowledge was Hoxton Square, and of this only the 
evidence of tradition, which, however, seems to have 
been accurately preserved. It seems tolerably certain 
that the house was that now numbered 19 on the 
north side. It has been much altered if not rebuilt, 
and is occupied as a clergy-house in connection with 
the chapel of St. Monica which adjoins it. The square 
is only a stone's-throw from the London Apprentice, 
the corner where Curtain Road joins Old Street. It 
is consequently a rather dismal spot, nearly every 
house having been knocked, so to speak, into a furni- 
ture factory. Some of the houses on the south side, 
which have been very Uttle altered, are very curious, 
and must be something like two hundred years old, 
but the rest have been built much later. The square 
was, however, laid out certainly as early as 1720, 
according to Strype, when the gardens behind the 



154 George Hardy and his Childreji 

houses on the east side joined the httle wayside 
hamlet of Hoxton, otherwise Hogge's Town. The old 
houses in the narrow High Street have still many 
features reminiscent of those distant days, which 
seem easier to reahse than those of the early nineteenth 
century. Of that time the garden is probably the 
least-altered feature which now remains in the square. 

As to the time when George Hardy lived there 
tradition does not speak definitely, but as the square 
is in Shoreditch parish, it may be presumed that he 
did not move thither till after March, 1808, when his 
youngest child was christened at Bethnal Green. 
On the other hand, there is reason to suppose it did not 
continue long after 1812. In that year the marriage took 
place between his eldest son William, then aged about 
twenty-two, and the daughter of one of his colleagues at 
the Excise Office, Thomas Kemp,* who was his neigh- 
bour in Hoxton Square ; and it is said that out of this 
event arose differences between the two families 
which led the Hardys to move away. 

It is not said whither they moved, but there is a 
tradition that for a considerable time their place of 
abode was " Norton Folgate." What is generally 
known as Norton Folgate to-day is the short length 
of the aforesaid ancient highway to Edmonton which 
connects the north end of Bishopsgate Street Without 
with the south end of " Shoreditch." This short 
thoroughfare — but at its south end only the eastern 
side of it — might be more accurately called that part 
of the high street which is in the Liberty of Norton 
Folgate, the latter being a small area at the south- 

* His name appears amongst the clerks there in the Royal 
Calendar as early as 1795. 




OLU HOUSKS IN SPITTAL SQUARE, NOKTON KClAiATE 



Hoxton Sqtiare and Norton Folgate 155 

eastern corner of Shoreditch parish wedged in between 
the City, the Old Artillery Ground Liberty, and 
Spitalfields. A small part of it lies on the west side 
of the high street and adjoins the south side of Worship 
Street, but the main part is on the east, consisting of 
Spittal Square, White Lion Street, and two or three 
streets further north. Spittal Square is a quiet nook 
reached only by narrow streets, and consequently 
scarcely used at all by wheeled traffic. It contains 
two or three blocks of alluring old Georgian houses, 
of the style of that at Sutton Valence in which George 
Hardy was born ; and they suggest that a hundred 
years ago Norton Folgate must have been quite a 
dignified place of residence. Like the Liberty of the 
Old Artillery Ground, it was extra-parochial, and 
Ellis* quotes " the ancients " as saying to that effect 
that they married and buried where they pleased. 

It is therefore not inconsistent with the family 
having lived here in 1820 that on December 7 of that 
year John Hardy, the second son, is described in the 
register of his marriage at St. John's, Hackney, as of 
St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green, that being very 
probably where he would worship and have his banns 
pubhshed if Norton Folgate was his home, as it had 
certainly been his father's place of worship from 1793 
to 1808. 

Another coincidence may be mentioned in con- 
firmation of the tradition of a residence in Norton 
Folgate. At St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, there is an 
entry that WilHam and Charlotte Read of Norton 
Folgate had their daughter Charlotte baptised there 
on May 23, 1790. It may well be conjectured that 

* Hist. Shoreditch and Norton Folgate (1798), p. 305. 



156 George Hardy and his Children 

this William was identical with the father of Mary 
Read, the bride of John Hardy, whose marriage has 
just been mentioned, and that the two famiHes were 
near neighbours before the Reads moved to the then 
salubrious suburb of Hackney, where they were living 
in 1820. For we have it from the bridegroom himself 
that one of the features of his courtship, like that of 
Pyramus and Thisbe, was a garden wall — in other 
words, it is clear that the gardens of the lovers' houses 
adjoined each other. This proximity and the fact 
that Mary Read had an uncle in the Excise Office 
easily account for an intimacy between the two 
families.* 

From Norton Folgate and Bethnal Green it is a 
far cry to the banks of Lune, and it may seem odd 
that we should turn to the pages of the Lonsdale 
Magazine for a description of the neighbourhood 
immediately adjoining the City Liberty at the time of 
our ancestor's residence there. There is, however, an 
article in that periodical for the year i82i,t under the 
heading of " Spitalfields," apparently attributable to 
the Rev. William Carus Wilson, who was interesting 
himself in relieving the appaUing poverty of that 
suburban parish. To this object it appears he had 
appropriated the " superfluous labour " of the Tunstal 
School for Training Girls for Service. This school was 
part of the institution founded by him which included 
the Cowan Bridge School for Daughters of the Clergy, 
where everyone familiar with the history of the Bronte 

* We do not know what was William Read's own business. He 
came from Deal, in which neighbourhood his family had been settled 
for some generations. 

t Vol. II, p. 228. 



Lonsdale and Spitalfields 157 

family — and who is not ? — vnll remember that Char- 
lotte and her sisters spent some unhappy years as 
pupils. 

The cottages in which the daughters of the clergy 
were then housed still exist on the banks of the Leek 
Beck, and from the side windows of the end cottage 
you look across the road to a field gate. Through this 
the carriage drive leads to Park House, which had 
been the habitation of WiUiam Hardy, George Hardy's 
grandfather, almost exactly a hundred years before 
the time with which we are now concerned. The 
editor of the magazine which was pubhshed at Kirkby 
Lonsdale was one John Briggs, who may have boasted 
a cousinship many times removed with the Rev. John 
Briggs, the vicar, who also a hundred years ago had 
befriended William Hardy's two brothers. Is it not 
an inviting hypothesis that George Hardy was the 
link, or one of the links, that brought the charity 
of Carus Wilson and the good people of Lonsdale 
into connection with Spitalfields ? A large part of the 
article consists of a quotation from the speech of Mr. 
T. F. Buxton, m.p., at a Mansion House meeting of the 
Benevolent Society in 1816, in which the misery of 
that parish, rendered all the more acute from its being 
one huge self-contained area of poor wage-earners in 
the closest contiguity with a centre of rapidly in- 
creasing wealth, is very impressively described. As 
a result of this meeting some £43,000 was subscribed 
for the relief of the parish, and in the distribution of 
this fund the principal agent named is the Rev. Josiah 
Pratt, the minister of Wheler Chapel in Spittal Square, 
Norton Folgate. 

As we have now reached a period within the know- 



158 George Hardy and his Children 

ledge of the generations still living, we may deal very 
shortly with remaining facts as to generation No. 8. 

Of the eleven children enumerated above five died 
young. In the record at Christ's Hospital of John 
Hardy's admission it is stated that he then had only 
four children, and indeed it is obvious that the first 
George must have died before the second was christened 
in 1796, and the first and second Harriets before the 
third was christened in 1798. 

William, as already stated, married in 1812 Ehza- 
beth, daughter of Thomas Kemp. By her he had a 
numerous family. 

John married first Mary, daughter of William Read, 
and secondly Ann, daughter of Samuel Whitaker, by 
both of whom he had issue. He died in his ninety-first 
year, which is the longest recorded life in our genealogy, 
that of his cousin Rebecca Bingley (born Hardy) of 
Kirkburton excepted. The average age recorded in 
the male line to this point is a fraction under 
seventy. 

George Frederick married first Sarah Patten, and 
secondly Fanny Groom, leaving issue by his first 
marriage two daughters only. 

Harriet married Thomas Charlesworth, by whom she 
had many children.* 

Of Mary and Ehza nothing but their baptisms is 
known to us, and they no doubt died in childhood. 

* Whether it be a mere coincidence I know not, but it is worth 
noting that records of a family of Charlesworths are found century 
after century in the parish registers of Kirkburton, where we have 
already traced a branch of the Hardys. The Charlesworths appear 
so numerously in the registers from 1540 to 1571 that they must 
have been flourishing in the neighbourhood many generations 
earlier. 



Hannali Maria : Chrissy Kingsley 159 

Hannah Maria, who survived all her brothers and 
sisters, died unmarried in 1892. 

Lewis Adam married and had one daughter. 

§ 2. Stray Cousins 

There appears in the list of oflicials at the Excise 
Office amongst the " accountants for London Brewery," 
from 1823 to 1828, one Henry J. Hardy. This may 
have been a son of the " Henry, son of Thomas Hardy," 
who was baptised at St. Peter's, Cornhill, on December 
18, 1757, and who may have been a son of Thomas 
Hardy of Leadenhall Street, and therefore first cousin 
to George. Henry himself does not appear in the 
published list of the Excise Officials, but it may well 
be supposed that he was there without attaining to 
the upper ranks, or that his son was got into the office 
in consequence of his relationship with George. 

Mrs. Kingsley, the sister of George Hardy, was said 
by her nephew John to have had a daughter, whom 
he used to recall as his charming cousin, Chrissy, and a 
tradition, which does not furnish the name of her 
husband, relates that she had three daughters, Mrs. 
Davenport, Mrs. Rokeby, and Mrs. Green. The name 
df Chrissy, doubtless taken from her aunt Anna Chris- 
tiana, also directs us again to St. Peter's ; where was 
buried in 1771 the wife of John Hardy of Leadenhall 
Street, who brought the name of Christian into the 
family. 



APPENDIX I 



POOR HOUSEHOLDERS OF BARBON NAMED IN THE WILL 
OF AGNES HARDY, MAY 28, 1605 



John Becke, 
Ric. Kendale, 
John Gibson, 
Geffery Hardye, 
Anthony Hardj^e, 
Wytton wife, 
Ric. Ustonson wife, 
John Wilson, 
Edward Buskell wife, 

and James 



Robert Crosby, 
Ric. Kendale wife, 
James Richardson wife, 
Nicholas Davye, 
Anthony Bayliffe, 
Roland Whitehead, 
George Dickonson, 
Robert Gibson, 
William Wilson, 
Fawcett. 



160 



APPENDIX II 

THE HEARTH-TAX RETURNS OF 167O FOR MIDDLETON, 
BARBON, AND CASTERTON 



Name 


Hearths 


Name Hei 


xrths 


MiDDLETON 


John Riding 


2 


Mr. Thos. Bainbrig 


g • I 


Chr. Walker 


I 


Widd. Baylitfe . 




Tho. Whittington . 


I 


Symond Pierson . 




John Thornbecke . 


I 


John Dent . 




Robt. Atkinson 


I 


Hy. Holme . 




Miles Walker 


I 


Mr. Tho. Ward . 




John Riding 


2 


George Spencer 




John Bayliffe 


2 


VVm. Bainbrigg 




John Bayliffe 


I 


James Harrison 




Thos. Baines et Mater 


2 


Joseph Bayhffe 




John Wilson 


I 


Wm. Richardson 




Widd. Moore 


5 


Richard Bouskell 




James Wilson 


2 


John Thombecke 




John Moore 


. 2 


Wm. Addison 




Richd. Goseling . 


. 2 


James Moore 




John Midi ton, Esqre. 


7 


John Bainbrigg 




Chr. Thornbecke . 


. I 


Mr. Moore . 




George Ward 


. 2 


John Ward . 




John Thornbecke . 


. I 


John Harhng 




Antho. Goseling . 


. 2 


Wm. Smarthwaite 




Edw. Goseling 


. 2 


Mr. Bainbrigg 




Chr. Bland . 


. I 


Philhp Walker 




James Hebblethwaite 


• 4 


James Bouskell 


. 2 


Tho. Otway 


. 2 


Robt. Fawcett 


. I 


John Hebblethwaite 


I 



161 



l62 



The Hearth- Tax Returns 



Najne Hearths 


Name Hearths 


Wm. Goselin 


I 


Richd. Hodghson . 


2 


James Goselin 


I 


Wm. Adison 


I 


Robt. Birkett 


I 


Richd. Garnett 


I 


Widd. Garden 


I 


Tho. Gibbonson . 


3 


James Ruecroft . 


2 


John Atkinson 


2 


Widd. Nelson 


I 


Robt. Moore 


I 


Nich. Otway 


2 


John Fowler 


I 


Nich, Otway 


I 


Robt. Holme 


2 


Robt. Hodghson . 


3 


Chr. Holme 


2 


James Baines 


I 


Tho. Fawcett 


I 


Rodger Dawson . 


I 


John Becke 


I 


Tho. Houghton . 


I 


Rich. Shuttleworth, 




Edward Hading . 


I 


Esqre. 


, 2 






Robt. Jackson 


I 


Barbon 




Edmond Garnett . 


I 


Robt. Bayliffe 


2 


Edmond Garnett . 


2 


Robt. Hardye 


2 


John Bainbrigg . 


2 


Jerimy Baines 


I 






Edmond Hardye . 


I 


Caste RTON 




Sam. Otlay . 


2 


Tho. Fawcett 


I 


Miles Garnett 


I 


John Foxcroft 


2 


Edmond Garnett . 


I 


Geo. Woodhouse . 


I 


Robt. Whitehead . 


I 


Bryan Manzer 


> 3 


Tho. Holme 


2 


Robt. Denton 


I 


Wm. Garnett 


I 


Rebecca Witton . 


. 2 


John Garnett 


4 


Tho. Parker 


• 3 


Tho. Garnett 


I 


Wm. Garnett 


. I 


Tho. Dent . 


I 


Wm. Hinde 


. 2 


John Wilson 


I 


Robt. Garnett 


I 


Tho. Fawcett 


I 


Edmond Witton . 


I 


James Waidson . 


2 


John Moore 


I 


Edward Garnett . 


. 2 


Wm. Dodghson . 


I 


Richard Garnett . 


2 


Joseph Moore 


I 


Samuel Gibson 


I 


Chr. Witton 


2 


James Richardson 


I 


Richd. Turner 


I 



Modern Populations 



163 



Name 


Hearths 


Name Hearths 


Chr. Hading 


. I 


Wm. Midlton 


I 


\Vm. Hardy 


I 


Edniond Dodghson 


I 


Chr. Jackson 


. 2 


John Smith 


I 


Edm. Hailing 


. I 


Franc. Styth 


2 


Edw. Harling 


. I 


Tho. Fawcett 


I 


VVidd. Baylifte 


. 2 


Widd. Garnett 


I 


Hy. Johnson 


2 new built 


Tho. Hinde 


I 


Widd. Jackson 


. I 


Tho. Witton 


I 


Edw. Bland 


. I 







From the repetition of some of the names in the above 
and other lists it seems probable that, in spite of the 
statutory directions to the contrary, the owner was some- 
times entered instead of the occupier. 

The following is a comparison of the Hearth-Tax 
Returns with the census enumerations of recent times : 





1670 


1831 


I9II 


Places 








bouses 


house 


persons 


persons 
222 


Middleton township 


62 


50 


286 


. Barbon township 


36 


62 


318 


274 


Casterton township* 


33 


58 


302 


428 


Whole parish, except Mansergh 


381 


725 


4153 


3226 


Kirkby Lonsdale township 


102 


318 


1686 


1524 


Rural townships, except Man- 










sergh * . . . . 


249 


407 


2467 


1702 


Mansergh .... 


— 


35 


232 


160 



* Allowance must be made for 186 persons in the population of 
Casterton in 191 1 resident in the Clergy Daughters Institutions. 



APPENDIX III 



LISTS FROM THE BARBON ENFRANCHISEMENT DEED OF 
JANUARY 17, I718 

Schedule 1 : Customary tenants whose tenements were 
enfranchised with the rents reserved by the enfranchise- 
ment deed. 









£ s. d. 


Margaret Addison . . . . 7 10 


Chr. Holme 






15 61 


John Atkinson, junr. . 






15 6 


Roger Moore 






9 6 


Robt. Place 






10 6J 


John Becke 






4 81 


Robt. Holme, junr. 






II 4^ 


John Jackson 






I 4 


Robt. Holme, senr. . 






I I 4h 


John Ortt . 






9 


Wm. Dixon of Coulby . 






12 7 


Thos. Richardson 






10 6J 


Hy. Bainbridge . 






17 lOl 


Thos. Garnett, senr. 






7 2i 


Thos. Garnett, son of Edw. 






13 II 


Thos. Hammond 






2 


Wm. Dixon of Barbon . 






3 


Alice Waller 






2 


James Wadeson . 






7 7 


John Atkinson, senr. . 






6 6J 


John Sowermire . 






4 


Carried Forward 


£9 5 8^ 


164 









Barbon in 17 18 



165 



Brought Forward 9 5 8.1 



Thos. Holme 








8i 


Eliz. Stainbanks. 








2 I 


John Rigg 
EHz. Glover 








3 7 

2 9 


Anihy. Reamy . 
Alice Cragg 
John Gamett 
Thos. Gamett, junr. 








I 7i 
I II 
I 12 10 
14 


Edm. Gamett 








5 I 


Thos. Dent 








3 3 


Wm. Hardy 
Saml. Fawcett . 








6 7 
II 


Ehz. Parker 








2 


James Garnett . 








3 9 


Thomas Herd 








2 6 


Bryan Watson . 
James Harrison . 








5 9 
I II 


Total [rejecting the odd halfpenny] 


£15 4 2 


Schedule 2 : Ancient free rents payable 


Defore the deed 


of enfranchisement and still reserved. 




Joseph Gibson . 
Tho. Dent 








I s. d. 

7 
2 3 


William Hardy . 
Thos. Richardson 








8 


Anthony Reamy. 
Eliz. Glover 








\ 

\ 


Robt. Holme 








\ 


James Harrison . 








I 



APPENDIX IV 

GRANDCHILDREN OF GEORGE HARDY (1766-1832) 

I. Children of William Hardy 

1. Eliza (m. Robert Shaw), 1813-1903 : issue living. 

2. William, 1820-1861 : had issue. 

3. George, 1824-1892 : died without issue. 

4. Charles, 1826-1911 : issue living. 

5. Edward. 

6. Mary (m. James Kimber), b. 1835 : issue hving. 

II. Children of John Hardy and Mary {b. Read) 

1. Robert Read, died 1832, aged 10. 

2. Mary (m. Jean Frangois Macaire), 1824-1870: issue 

living. 

3. John Frederic, 1826-1888 : died unmarried.* 

4. William Read, 1827-1894 : issue living. 

5. Charles Friend, 1 829-1 883 : issue living. 

III. Children of John Hardy and Ann {b. Whitaker) 

1. Samuel Whitaker, 1835-1898 : issue living. 

2. George Dalton, b. 1837 • issue living. 

IV. Children of George Frederick Hardy and Sarah {b. Fallen) 

1. Constance (m. Glascott Symes), 1836-88: issue living. 

2. Matilda, 1836-1906 : died unmarried. 

V. Daughter of Lewis Adam Hardy 

Eleanor (m. Oram) : issue living. 

* He was one of those Cambridge men who in 1857 cradled the 
Alpine Club on the summit of the Finsteraarhorn (Peaks, Passes, 
and Glaciers, ist Series). 

166 



INDEX 



The references are to the pages. Abbreviatiotjs : b. =born, bap. = 
baptised, bu. =buried, d. — died, m. =married. A date alone in 
parenthesis refers to mention of a living person in a dated document. 



Addison, Margaret, 164 

— William, 161, 162 
Aikrigg End, Aikrigg Green, 62 
Alderbury, 115 

Allen, Isabel, 48 
Almondbury, 105, 109 
Almonry Farm, 133 
Alpine Club, 166 
Appleby School, 112 
Applegarth, Sir Robert, 29 
Armitage, Sir John, 109 
Arms and armour, 7, 31 
Artillery Grounds, 152 
Atkinson, Edward, 22 

— John, 162, 164 

— Robert, 161 
Aumbry Farm, 133 

Bainbridge (Bainbrigg), Henry, 164 

John, 161, 162 

Mr., 161 

Thomas, 161 

William, 161 

Baines (Baynes), Edward, and wife, 

27,34 

James, 162 

Jeremy, 162 

Thomas, 161 

Barbon beacon, 1 1 

— beck, 30, 46 (and see Beckfoot) 

— bridges, 30, 31 

— chapel, 4, 30, 33, 34 

— enfranchisement of statesmen, 
13. 94> 95. 164, 165 



Barbon fells, 98 

— hearth-tax list, 76, 162 

— manor, 6, 9, 10, 13, 21, 164, 165 

— mill, 10, 13, 46 

— poor householders, 27, 160 

— tenants, 164, 165 

— township or village, 4, 40, 46, 
76, 163 

Barkin Dale, II 
Barnsley, 103 

Barwick, John and Peter, 67 
Bayliffe, Anthony, l6o 

— John, 161 

— Joseph, 161 

— Robert, 162 

— widow, 161, 163 
Baynes. See Baines 

Beck, John, 66, 160, 162, 164 
Beckfoot, 30, 46, 47, 50-2, 77, 78, 

92, 96, 97 
Backside Hall, 44, 115 
Beetham, 85, 115 
Bellingham, Allan, 45 
Benevolent Society, 157 
Bethnal Green, 145, 147, 152-6 
Bifrons, 141 
Bilsington, 132 
Bingley, Rebecca, b. Hardy, 105, 

142, 158 
Birchington, 133 
Birkett, Robert, 162 
Birksgate, 106, loS 
Bishopsgate Street, 14S, 151 
fire, 121 



167 



i68 



Index 



Bland, Christopher, i6i 

— Edward, 163 
Border peles, 90 

— service, 7-13 

— tenure, 5-8, 11-13 
Borwick (Barwick) Hall, go 
Bouskell (Buskell), Agnes, 31, 66 
Bridget, 66 

Edward, 160 

Giles, 31 

James, 161 

Richard, 161 

Thomas, 31, 67 

Brabyn, Mr. , 34 
Braffin, 116 
Bridge Place, 141 
Bridges, 30, 31 
Briggs, Augustin, 100 

— family of, 100, 129 

— Grace, 128 

— Henry, 121, 128, 129 

— Hobart, 121, 128 

— John, of the Lonsdale Magazine^ 
16, 157 

— John, Rev., 100, 129, 157 

— John, of the Post Office, 121, 128 

— Joseph, of Liverpool, 128 

— Joseph, Rev., 100, loi, 103-5, 
128, 129 

— Joseph, of Wakefield, 129 

— Miss, m. Martin, 128 

— Richard, 1 00 

— Samuel, 129 

— William, 128, 129 
Brockbank, William, 73 
Bronte, Charlotte, and her sisters, 

92, 156, 157 
Broome, Nicholas, 132 
Brushfield Street, 151 
Buchanan, George, 66, 71 
Burrow, Anthony, 61 

— Arthur, 62 

— Robert, 61 
Burton-in-Kendal, 45 



Buskell. Ste Bouskell 
Buxton, Thoniis Fowell, 157 

Cambridge, Maud, Countess of, 69 

— Richard, Earl of, 69, 70 
Canterbury, Archbishop and Dean 

and Chapter of, 132, 133, 130, 

138 
Carnforth, 33 

Carpenters' Company, 124, 125 
Casterton, hearth-tax list, 76, 162, 

163 

— manor and township, 4, 9, 24, 
76, 163 

Chapels of ease, 4 
Charles I, 12, 104 
Charlesworth family, 158 

— Harriet, b. Hardy, 56, 14S, 158 

— Thomas, 56, 158 
Chelsea, 108 

Christian names, alternation of, 57, 

58 
Christ's College, Cambridge, 115, 

116, 140 
Christ's Hospital, 145, 147, 151, 

152, 158 
Civil War, II, 38, 66, 71, Si 
CHfford, Maud, 69 

— Thomas, Lord, 69 
Clothworkers' Company, 1 28, 131 
Cockermouth, 11 

Code Street, 152 
Cole, William, 71, 81 
Conder, Edward {1608), 49 

— Edward, k.s.a., 50, 86 

— Joan, b. Hardy, 50 

— John, 37, 38 

— Richard, 50 

— family, 76 
Copeland, 11 

Cowan Bridge, 85, 92, 98, 156 
Cozens-Hardy, Sir H. H., 42 
Cragg, Alice, 165 
Cranbrook, Earl of, 42 



Index 



169 



Crosby, Robert, 160 

— William, 34 
Crosfield, James, 25 
Crown manors, 8, 12, 24 
Ciimberworth, 107 

Cumming (Commingc), Edmond, 

119 

Edward, 1 19 

Elizabeth, 56, 99, iiS, 119, 

127, 142 

James, 1 19 

Robert, 127, 139, 142 

Curtain Road and the Curtain, 

148-51 
Curteis, Esther, m. Hardy. Set 

Hardy 

— Miss (m. Papillon), 145 

— Thomas, father and son, 135-8 

— Thomas Sackville, 138, 139 

Dacres, Lord, 11 
Dallam Tower, 85, 86 
Dalton, place-name, 144 

— Mary, m. Hardy. See Hardy 
Davenport, Mrs., 159 

Davye, Nicholas, 160 
Dawson, Roger, 162 
Deal, 156 
Death's part, 37 
Dent, 35 

— John, 161 

— Thomas, 95, 162, 165 
Denton, Robert, 162 
Dickonson^ George, 160 
Ditchside, 149-51 
Dixon, William, 164 
Dodghson (Dodgson, Dodshone), 

Edmond, 163 

Sir Robert, 29 

William, 162 

Dorset, Duke of, 136, 144 
D'Oyley, Robert, loi, 102 
Dwelling-house, the statesman's, 

16-20, 67, 86, 92 



East Sutton, 132 
Edward HI, 69 

— IV, 69 

Excise Office, 1 14, 144-7 

Faucitt (Fawcett), James, 160 

Matthew, 61 

Robert, 161 

Samuel, 165 

Thomas, 80, 162, 163 

Filmer family, 132 
Fishmongers Company, 1 21 
Flasby (Flastbee), Elizabeth, m. 
Hardy. See Hardy 

family, 84, 98 

hamlet, 84 

Fleming, Catherine, 85 

— Sir Daniel, 85 
Flodden, battle of, 10, 11, 85 
Fords across the Lune, 47 
Foxcroft, John, 162 
Fowler, John, 162 
Funerals, 33, 37 

Garden, widow, 162 

Gargrave, 84 

Garnett, Edmond, 80, 162, 165 

— Edward, 162 

— James, 165 

— John, 162, 165 

— Miles, 162 

— Richard, 162 

— Robert, 162 

— Thomas, 25, 95, 162, 164, 165 

— widow, 163 

— William, 162 

— family, 97 

Garsdale, William, 26, 28 
Garthorne (Gaythorne, Gaw- 

thorne). Manor, 45 
Gathorne, Edward, 45 

— Eliza, 44 

— Isabel, b. Preston, 45 

— John, 45 



I70 



Index 



Gathorne, Miles, 44, 45 

— Richard, 44, 45 

— Sarah, 45 

Gathorne-Hardy, Gathorne, 42 
Gawthorpe, 9, 10 

George Street, 152, 153 
Gibbonson, Thomas, 162 
Gibson of Whelprigg, 14, 95, 116 

— John, 160 

— Joseph, 95, 165 

— Leonard, 22 

— Nicholas, 25 

— Robert, 160 

— Sir Robert, Tp 

— Samuel, 76, 162 
Gilpin, John, 148 
Glover, Isabel, 21 

— Elizabeth, 95, 165 
Godsalve, Thomas, 114 

— Miss, m. Mawdesley, 1 16 
Goselin (Goseling), Anthony, 161 
Edward, 161 

James, 162 

Richard, 161 

William, 162 

Green, Mrs., 159 
Grimeshill. Set Moore 
Groom, Fanny, 158 
Guy, II 

Hackney, 155, 156 
Halstead, 135, 137 
Hammond, Thomas, 164 
Hanmer, Mrs., 127 

— Maria, 127 

— Thomas Hardy, 127 
Hardi, Clement le, 41, 42 

— (le Hardi, Hardie, Hardye, 
Hardy), the name, 5, 41, 42 

— family in Jersey, 42 

Barbon and Kirkby Lonsdale, 

4, 5. IS. 41. 44 

Norfolk, 42 

Wessex, 41 



Hardy, Agnes, 26-8, 34, 57, 6c, 8 

— Alfred, 109 

— Alice, 22, 60 

— Ann, b. Whitaker, 158, 166 

— Anna Christiana, 143, 159 

— Anthony, 27, 36, 50-2, 56-60, 
63, 71, 160 

— Benjamin, 106 

— Betty, m. North. See North 

— Charles, 166 

— Charles Friend, 166 

— Charles Marius, 106 

— Christabel, 34, 56, 71, 79, 81 

— Christian, 124, 159 

— Constance, m. Symes, 166 

— Edmund (d. 1571), 5, 27, 
56-60, 72 

wife of, 27, 57 

(d. 1680), 76, 162 

— Edward, of Beckfoot, 56, 73, 
79-81, 83, III 

— Edward, of Cumberworth, 106, 
107 

of Sevenoaks, 56, 97, 99, 

118-20, 134-9. 142, 145 

of Shepley Hall, I08 

(1594), 22 

(1605), 24 

(bu. 1692), 83 

(grandson of George of the 

Excise Office), 166 

— Eleanor, m. Oram, 166 

— Eliza, 148, 158 
m. Shaw, 166 

— Elizabeth, m. Cumming. See 
Camming 

b. Kemp, 158 

b. Flasby, 56, 84, 99 

b. Middleton, 56, 60, 61, 63 

(1605), 26 

(bap. 1606), 71 

— Ellen, 76 

— Esther, b. Curteis, 135, 136, 
139. 145 . 



Index 



171 



Hardy, Frances Catherina, 141, 142 

— Gathorne, 42 

— Geoffrey, 28, 35, 36, 160 

— George, of the Excise Office, 
56. 139. M3-57, 166 

(bu. 1599), 33 

(bap. 1725), 93. "8 

(b. 1789), 147. 158 

(d. 1892), 166 

— George Dalton, 166 

— George Frederick, 56, 148, 158, 
166 

— Hannah Maria, 144, 148, 159 

— Harriet, m. Charlesworth. See 
Charlesworth 

m. Kingsley. See Kingsley 

(b. 1793). 148. 158 

(b. 1798), 148, 158 

— Helen, 60 

— Henry, 124, 139, 159 

— Henry J., 159 

— Isabel, b. Gathorne, 44 
b. Glover, 21 

b. Read, 56, 8i, 84, 93, 94 

(1605), 26 

(bap. 1608), 71 

— Isabella (1712-62), 118, I19 
(d. 1796), 126, 139 

— James, 5, 21-5 

— Jennet, 27, 34 
b. Stockdale, 49 

— Joan, 22 

m. Conder, 50 

— John, of Bridge Place, 119, 137, 
140-2 

of Horsforth, 43, 44 

of Kirkburton, 56, 83, 84. 

99-105, 129, 141 
of Leadenhall Street, 56, 97, 

99, 118-27, 138, 139, 142, 159 

of Penistone, 106, 108 

Recorder of Leeds, 44 

(d. 1571), S. 30, 58, 59 

(1571). S8, 59 

(1579). 32 



Hardy, John (1594), 22 

(d. 1598), 6, 32,33 

(1605), 24 

(d. 161 1), 26, 28 

(bap. 161S), 52 

(d. 1623), 49-51 

(1635). 51. 52. 59 

(b. 1751). 143 

(d. 1882), 56, 145-7, 152, 

155, 158, 166 

— John Frederic, 166 

— Joseph, of Kirkburton, 106 

of Knole, 56, 143, 144 

of Sutton Valence, 56, 93, 95, 

97, 99, 118-20, 127-34, 142, 143 

— Julius, 106 

— Leonard, 5 

— Lewis Adam, 56, 148, 159, 166 

— Margaret, 48, 49, 51, 71, 77 

— Maria, 127, 139 

— Martha or Mary, 106 

— Mary, b. Dalton, 56, 144, 146,147 
m. Kimber, 166 

m. Macaire, 166 

b. Mokeson, 10 1 

b. Read, 156, 158, 166 

widow of Joseph, 56, 131, 

134, 139 

— Mary or Martha, 106 

— Mary Ann, 148, 158 

— Matilda, 166 

— Matilda Elizabeth, 143 

— Peter, 5, 26, 34, 35 

— Rebecca, m. Bingley. 5'f«Bingley 

— Richard, 5, 21, 24, 25, 76 

— Robert, 32, 34, 49. 58, 59. 76. 
77, 162 V 

— Robert Read, 166 

— Roland, 5. 32, 46-52, 57-9 

— Samuel Whitaker, 166 

— Sarah, b. Patten, 158, 166 

— Stephen, 5, 32, 49 

— Thomas, of Barbon, 5 

of Birksgate (d. 1777), 105, 

106, 142 



172 



Index 



Hardy, Thomas, of Birksgate (d. 

1836), 106-8 

(d. 1848), 107, 108 

of Horsforth, 43, 44 

of Leadenhall Street, 56, 97, 

99, 118, 123-7, 138, 139, 142, 159 
of Mirfield, 56, 83, 84, 100, 

109, no, 140, 141 

novelist, 41 

(d. 1676), 56, 79-81 

(b. I7S3), 143 

(bap. 1770), 124 

— Thomas Flashy, 126, 127, 139 

— Sir Thomas Masterman, 41 

— William, of Barbon, senr., 51, 
56, 59, 71-80, 163 

ofEastwell, 140, 141 

of Horsforth, 43 

of Kirkburton, 105 

of Park House, 56, 81-99, 

118, 129, 141, 157, 165 

(bap. 1538), 5 

(160S), 26 

(d. 1697), 76, 78 

(d. 1699), 72, 78 

(b. 1761), 143 

(b. 1719, dead 1796), 99, "8, 

"9. 139 

(d. 1861), 166 

(d. 1862), 56, 147. 154. 158,166 

— William Read, 166 
Harling, Christopher, 25, 163 

— Edmond, 163 

— Edward, 162, 163 

— John, 161 

Harrison family, 47, 48, 96 

— James, 95, 161, 165 
Headcorn, 132 
Hearn Street, 151 
Hearth-tax, 75-7, 161-3 
Hebblethwaite, James, 16 1 

— John, 161 
Heirlooms, 34 
Herd, Thomas, 165 



Heriots, 7 

Heme, Sir William, 145, 151 
Heversham, 85, 112 
Hinde, Thomas, 163 

— William, 162 
Hobart, Sir Henry, 12 
Hodghson, Richard, 162 

— Robert, 162 
Hogarth, Richard, 116 

— William, 116, 117 
Holme family, 96, 97 

— graveship, 103 

— House, 119 

— Alice, 96 

— Christopher, 162, 164 

— Elizabeth, b. Huck, 96 

— Henry, 161 

-J.,96 

— Robert, 95, 162, 164, 165 

— Thomas, 96, 97, 162, 165 
Holt, 121 

Holywiell Lane, 149 

— Mount, 148-51 

— Priory, 151 
Hornby, 10, 40 
Horsforth, 43 
Houghton, Thomas, 162 
Hoxton Square, 153, 154 
Hoyle, Henry, 75 

Huck, Elizabeth, m. Holme, 96 

— WiUiam, 96 
Huddersfield, 103 
Hutton, Old, 45 

— Roof, 9 

— William, 55, 85 

Ingleton, 10, 37, 38, 98, 99 
Ingmire, 26, 67, 116 
Ireland, 42-4 

Jackson, Christopher, 163 

— John, 22, 164 

— Robert, 162 

— widow, 163 

— William, 25 



Index 



173 



Jacobites at Kendal, 118 
James VI and I, 11-13 
Johnson, Henry, 163 

Kemp family, 145 

— Elizabeth. See Hardy 

— Thomas, 154 
Kendal, barony of, 8, 21 

— town of, II, 40, 118 
Kendale, Richard, 160 
Keswick, 1 1 

Kiniber, Mary, b. Hardy, 166 
Kingsley, Chrissy, 159 

— Harriet, b. Hardy, 56, 134, 139, 

143. 159 

— William, 134 
Kirkburton, 100-9 

— school, 100 

Kirk by Lonsdale bridge, 31 

church, 4, 68 

churchyard, 98 

parish, 3, 4, 8, 9, 75, 163 

parish registers, 4, 5 

school, 32, 75, 112, 114, 115, 

120, 140 

town, 3, 4, 39, 40 

township, 3, 75, 163 

Knole, 138, 144 

Lambe, William, 130, 134 

Lancaster, 3, 40, 103 

Lascelles family, 9 

Latymer, Lady, 69 

Leadenhall Street, 121, 122, 126 

Leek, 84, 85, 92 

Lee, Lord, 12 

Leeds, 98 

Levens, 45, 85 

Lidget chapel, 108 

Lindsay, George, 49 

— Margaret (formerly Hardy, b. 
Allen), 48, 49 

Loose, 128 

Lowther, Robert, 37, 38 



Lune river. See Bridges, Fords 
Lupton, 60, 62, 75 

Macaire, Jean Franfois, 166 

— Mary, b. Hardy, 166 
Manchester, 107 

Manors. See Border tenure 
Mansergh family and Hall, 44, 48 

— Hall houses, 48-50, 76 

— township, 4, 76, 163 
Manzer, Bryam, 162 
Martin, Dennis, 128 
Mawtlesley, Margaret, b. Godsalve, 

116 
Medcalfe, Dr., in 
Medlton. Read Middleton 
Middleton chapel, 6S 

— family, 44, 60, 63-5, 69 

— Hall, 65-8, 75 

— hearth-tax list, 75, 161 

— manor, 63, 65 

— township, 3, 64, 75, 163 

— (Medlton, Mydlton), Adam, 29, 61 

— Ann, b. Tunstall, 68 

— Arthur, 32, 37, 62 

— Benjamin, 65 

— Christopher, 66 

— Edmund, 62 

— Edward, of Dent, 35 
of Middleton Hall, 114 

— Elizabeth, m. Hardy. See Hardy 

— Sir Geoffrey, 67, 69 

— George, j6, 61 

— Isabel, 61 

m. Hardy, 60, 61 

m. Willan, 35 

b. Musgrave, 69 

— Joan, 61 

— John, of Aikrigg End, 36, 37, 62 

of Lupton, 32, 36, 61, 62, 75 

of Middleton Hall, 9, 38, 

66, 68, 75, 161 

— Richard, 35, 66 

— Sibell, 35 

— Stephen, 61, 62 



174 



Index 



Middleton, Thomas, 69 

— William, 60, 61, 75, 163 

Colonel, 66 

Middleton-Moore. See Middleton 

family 
Milnthorpe, 40 
Mirfield, 109, no 
Mokeson family, lOi 

— Mary, m. Hardy, loi 
Monkton, 133 

Moore, Alice, 27 

— Eliza, 44 

— family, 44, 66 

— James, 161 

— John, 44, 161, 162 

— Joseph, 162 

— Mr., 161 

— Richard, 34 

— Robert, 162 

— Roger, 164 

— widow, 75, 161 

— William, 25 

Morehouse, H. J., and family, 108 
Musgrave, Alice, b. Plantagenet, 
69, 70 

— Elizabeth, 70 

— Isabel, 69 

— Sir Philip, 67 

— Sir Richard, 69 

— Sir Thomas, 69 

Musicians' Company, 120, I2I, 125 

Nelson, widow, 162 

Newby Hall, 86 

Nicholson, Sarah, b. Gathorne, 45 

Noble, Mr., 120, 140 

Noddall, 10 

Non-residenceof theclergy, 133, 134 

North, Benjamin, 105 

— Betty, b. Hardy, 105, 142 
Norton Folgate, 148, 154-7 
Norwich School, 100 

Old Hutton, 45 
Old Town, 48 



Oram, Eleanor, b. Hardy, 166 

Ortt, John, 164 

Otlay, Samuel, 162 

Otway family, 10, 44, 115, 116 

— Geoffrey, 10, 49 

— Humphrey, 116 

— Sir John, 67 

— Nicholas, 76, 162 

— Samuel, 80 

— Thomas, 76, 116, 161 

Bishop, 115 

dramatist, 116 

Papillon, David, 138, 144, 145 
Parish registers of Kirkby Lons- 
dale, 4, 5 

Park House, 84-93, 9^. '57 
Parker, Elizabeth, 165 

— Thomas, 162 
Parsivell, William, 73 
Patten, Sarah. See Hardy 
Payne family, 132 
Pele-towers, 90 
Pembroke College, 143 
Pews, 35, 91 

Pierson, Symond, 161 
Pill, 127 

Place, Robert, 95, 164 
Plantagenet, Alice, 69, 70 

— Richard, 69, 70 
Plurality of benefices, 133, 134 
Poor-box, 29, 34 
Populations, 163 

Pratt, Josiah, 157 

Prayers for the dead, 29 

Preston, Isabel, 45 

Queen's College, Oxford, 113, 115 

Read, Agnes, 81 

— Charlotte, 155 

— Christopher, 81 

— Isabel, m. Hardy, 56, 81 

— Mary, m. Hardy. See Hardy 

— Thomas, 73 

— William, 155, 156, 158 



Index 



175 



Reamy, Anthony, 95, 165 
Redman (Readman, Kedmayne) 

family, 37, 38 
Richardson, James, 160, 162 

— Thomas, 95, 164, 165 

— William, l6i 

Richmond Archdeaconry records, 

15, 16, 29 
Rider, Sir Thomas, 132 
Riding, John, i6i 
Rigg, John, 165 

— Roland, 25 
Rigmaden, 35, 47, 66 
Roads, 30, 31, 39-41 
Robinson, Henry, 104 
Rokeby, Mrs., 159 
RoUinson, George, 79 

— William, 25 

Ronaldson (Rondson), William, 25 
Royalists in Kirkby Lonsdale, 38, 66 
Ruecroft, James, 162 
Ruskin, John, 98 

St. Agnes Clear, 149 

St. Dionis', Backchurch, 138 

St. Peter's on Cornhill, 124-6 

Salle, 100 

Schools in Westmorland, III-16 

Sedbergh school, 115, 116 

Sedgwick (Sigswick), Adam, 58 

— Isabel, b. Hardy, 26 

— Richard, 26 
Selme, Thomas, 73 
Settle, 40, 98, 103 
Sevenoaks benefice, 136, 138 

— school, 135, 136 
Shakespeare, Mrs. William, 106 
Shaw, Eliza, b. Hardy, 166 

— Robert, 166 
Sheffield, 103, 121 
Shelley, chapel at, 107 
Shepley Hall, 108 
Shoreditch, 147-9 
Shuttleworth accounts, 6, 9 

— Lord, 9 



Shuttleworth, Sir Richard, 6, 9, 10, 
49 

— Richard, Esij., 9, 13, 76, 95, 162 
Silkstone, 107 

Skipton, 40, 103 
Smarlhwaite, William, 161 
Smith, John, 163 
Smithills, 10 
Sowermire, John, 164 
Spencer, George, 161 
Spencer-Stanhope family, 43 
SpilaUields, 152, 156, 157 
Spittal Square, 155, 157 
Stainbanks, Elizabeth, 165 
Stanhope, John, 43 
Staveley, 30 

Stockdale (Stockdall, Stoctell) 
family, 36, 48, 49 

— Christopher, 48, 49 

— Geoft'rey, 36 

— George, 49 

— James, 48 

— Jennet, 49 

— John, 48, 49, 114 

— Leonard, 30, 32, 48, 49 

— Matthew, 32, 58 

— Mrs., 48 

— William, 32 
Strafford, Earl of, 44 
Styth, Francis, 163 

Sutton Valence school, church, 

etc., 128-32, 15s 
Sydenham, 108 
Symes, Constance, b. Hardy, 166 

— Glascott, 166 

Taylor, John, I41 
Tenant-right, 5, 6, 12 
Terry Bank, 48-50, 86 
Thornbecke, John, 161 

— Christopher, 161 
Thornton-in-Lonsdale, 38, 84, 9S, 

119 
Thurland Castle, 85, 91 
Thurstonland, 105 



176 



Index 



Towers (Border peles), 90 

Townson, Robert, 22 

Town Sutton. ^tfarfSutton Valence 

Trant, Mr., 120 

Tunstal, Ann, 68 

— Brian, 85 

Tunstal parish and church, 84, 9 1 , 92 
Tunstal Training School, 156 
Turner, Richard, 162 
Tyrergh Bank. Set Terry Bank 

Underley Park, 47, 66, 98 
Union Street, 151 
Ustonson, Richard, 160 

— Robert, 33, 73 

Vaughan family, 9 
Venner, Samuel, 132 

Wadeson(Waidson), James, 80, 162 
Wages, 28 
Wakefield, 100, 129 
Walker, Christopher, 161 

— Miles, 161 

— Philip, 161 
Waller, Alice, 164 
Walworth, 108 
Ward, George, i6i 

— Henry, 66 

— John, 35, 161 

— Thomas, 161 
Warton, 33 
Watson, Bryan, 165 
Wesleyan Methodists, 107 
Westhouse, 84 

Whaler Chapel, 157 
Whelprigg, 14 

Whitaker, Ann, m. Hardy. See 
Hardy 

— Samuel, 158 
Whitehead, Helen, 26, 28 

— Robert, 162 



Whitehead, Roland, 160 
Whitfield, Henry, 135, 136 
Whittington parish, 94 

— Thomas, 161 
Widow-right, 6, 7, 21 
Wilkinson, Robert, 124 
Willan, Christopher, 35 

— Isabel, b. Middleton, 35 
William de Worfat, 55 
Williamson, John, 22 
Willow Walk, 149 
Wilson of Underley, 67 

— Daniel, 86 

— Edward, 85, 86, 112 

— Henry, 66, 115 

— James, 161 

— John, 160, 161, 162 

— Thomas, 115 

— William, 160 

— William Carus, 156 
Winchilsea, Earl of, 140 

Witton (Wytton), Christopher, 162 

— Edmund, 162 

— Rebecca, 162 

— Thomas, 163 

— wife of, 160 
Woodchurch, 133 
Woodhouse, George, 79, 162 

— Isabel, 79 
Woolbeding, 1 16 
Wooldale, 108 
Worfat, William de, 55 
Worship Street, 148-50 
Wraton, 94 
Wrotham, 136 
Wytton. Read Witton 

Yealand, li 
York, 40 

— Duke of, 69 

Younger sons of statesmen, 39-41 



WUXIAM BRENDON AND SON, L'l'O. 
PRINTHRS, PLVl.IOUTH